Students of Christian Science are sometimes heard to say that although a certain needful advance could be achieved by employing will power, they are not willing to make the attempt because Christian Science forbids the use of the human will. One who had been a student of this Science for years sought help to overcome a bad habit. With a desire to do whatever seemed right, the man said he could abandon the habit by the use of will power, but he wanted his healing to be a demonstration of Christian Science. Here it may be said that in abandoning a recognized evil, one is not using human will power; instead, he is rebuking and destroying error with the Science of Mind in obedience to the will of God. Since Truth and error will not mix, it would be like trying to fill vessels already full to presume that one could gain a clear understanding of the presence and power of divine Love while at the same time indulging in a bad habit or submitting to any evil or disease. Love chastens as a father corrects his child, and truth destroys error. In praying the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done," one must obey the will of God, good, remembering that it is never necessary to do evil in order that good may come.
Christian Scientists have every needed proof that Christian Science is the Christ, Truth, through the healing of disease and sin after other systems of religion and medicine have failed. Having had this proof and having adopted Christian Science, they should not hesitate to acknowledge to themselves and to God in secret prayer that they are Christian Scientists. They should accept lovingly and obediently all that a just acknowledgment entails; for to be a real Christian Scientist is the rightful heritage of all the sons and daughters of God. It is a scientifically spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. In addressing the Christians at Ephesus the apostle Paul admonished them to "put on the whole armour of God." A dictionary gives as the definition of armor, "Defensive arms for the body; any clothing or covering worn to protect one's person in battle." Besides this we find the following definition of ordain: "To arrange in rows or order; especially, to draw up in battle array," but neither this nor the other seems to suggest clerical robes or ecclesiastical sanctimony, but instead spiritual understanding and Christian activity. In proportion as one puts on the armor of God and battles for the right idea of God and man, including the universe, he possesses the spirit of Christ and no longer fears disease, loves sin, or indulges so-called sensuous pleasures. He understands the Master's declaration, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
When the understanding is gained that God is divine Mind, and that there is but one Mind, one God, one cause and its perfect and indestructible effect, the action of the so-called mortal mind is reversed and the erroneous action of will power is vanquished. Hence it is that one is not employing human will in determinedly abandoning a habit, belief, or inharmonious condition which he has learned through this understanding to be foreign to man's spiritual being or desire and to be no part of his true nature.
