Christ Jesus enjoins, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," and Christian Science makes a rich gift to its followers in showing them what and how to overcome in order to progress toward the shining goal of perfection. The beloved disciple John clearly stated the divine modes and methods of overcoming in the fifth chapter of his first epistle, where he wrote, "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." He well knew that worldliness — in other words, bondage to material sense— must be conquered, and all that is unlike God must be put aside, if one would "press toward the mark for the prize," — the prize of perfection.
Only those who are born of God, who have awakened to realize the allness of Spirit, can truly overcome, and as the apostle says, "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." This faith is the spiritual understanding of eternal realities, the origin and ultimate of all that really is. St. John concludes his statement on overcoming with the words, "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" In other words, he affirms that the understanding of God, and that man is His image, is the key which unlocks the treasure-house wherein are found the abundant riches of Spirit. A true comprehension of man, as not of the flesh but as the child of Spirit, — this is the faith that overcomes all worldliness.
The importance of overcoming is well set forth by this same inspired thinker in the second, third, and twenty-first chapters of the Apocalypse. First, he that overcometh is "to eat of the tree of life." One is eating of the tree of life who finds his substance in the inspired word of the Scripture, and in the pages of that wonderful commentary on the Bible, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. Again, John declares that he who overcometh shall have "power over the nations." That is to say, he who is at-one with Spirit, conquers all conditions of material belief, and thus gains dominion over every form of error. In the third chapter of Revelation, St. John declares that the spiritual victor "shall be clothed in white raiment;" he shall be untouched by evil, uncontaminated by the corrupting influence of false sense. Further on we read that such a one shall be "a pillar" with a "new name," signifying that "he that ruleth his spirit" shall become a helper and a blessing to others who are also making earnest efforts to overcome all that is unlike good, in so far as the light is revealed to them.
