In Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 1) we read, "Rest assured you can never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in His service." What a benediction is this! We may well ponder deeply these words, so that we may rest in assurance of God's blessing and protection.
What does it mean to be in God's service? How may we be sure that we are serving God? How may we know that we really desire to serve Him? To serve God means to be the servant of God; to be subject to God at all times and in all ways. To be thus subject must include God's constant government and a complete willingness to give our time to Him; to do what He desires to have us do, not what mortal mind feels inclined to do. Why do we wish to serve God? Is it not because we have learned that of ourselves we can do nothing? Have we not found that without the guidance of divine intelligence our efforts fail to accomplish the good which desire? But when we learn of God as ever present good, always operative, always active, how natural that we should desire always to reflect God or be the expression of good!
This brings us to the question of obedience. If we are in God's service, we must be obeying God. We must be about our Father's business. We must be about God's business, the business or work of expressing divine Mind in all our activities. We cannot obey God and mammon. We cannot obey both divine Mind and so-called mortal mind; for they are opposites. We cannot serve two masters. If we attempt to do so, we shall find that when we are obeying the one we are disobeying the other. Which shall we obey?
Knowing through experience the blessings which come from letting that Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus,"—the divine Mind,—we learn to watch and pray that we entertain only the thoughts that come to us from God. This is to be in God's service, to be God-governed, to have God govern our thinking. If our thoughts are governed by divine Mind, our outward acts will be also. Is not this the only thing worth while? The result, or reward, of such thinking is the assurance that we are never without God's protection. What a "peace, be still" to all fear!
What about loyalty to God? We need to learn what loyalty to divine Principle means; to see what it requires of us. All of our time really belongs to divine Mind. If we are loyal to divine Mind, our every activity will be God-governed; and we shall be found earnestly and actively supporting all those agencies established by our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, to bring a demonstrable knowledge of God to humanity.
As Christian Scientists, we have enlisted in the greatest Cause the world has ever known. We have enlisted to overcome all evil with good. As loyal soldiers in our allegiance to divine Principle, we are united in obedience to the rules given for our government. Shall we call Mrs. Eddy our Leader with our lips, and then refuse or neglect to follow her by failing to support all those agencies which she established? We should not fail to see that she was governed by God in taking those steps which protected the purity of the revelation of Christian Science, and provided for its establishment as a permanent blessing for all mankind. In obedience to God, she gave the rules and By-laws of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, for that purpose. These rules and Bylaws provide for the evangelization of the human race, the establishment of the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love upon earth, the kingdom of God within us. Mrs. Eddy says of these rules and By-laws in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 148): "They were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates,and as the occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,—from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause."
Can we be truly serving God at our post of duty if we are intent on watching and criticizing the efforts of others? If we are loyally, and unselfishly, and faithfully doing our own work, wherever we may be serving in the Cause of Christian Science, we may rest secure in knowing that we are thus acting in conformity with our Daily Prayer in the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. VIII, Sect. 4) for the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. If we patiently and persistently remain at our post, doing the work given us to do, we are making God's government manifest. Surely we should never desert our post because we believe some one else has not done his work aright. The welfare of an army may depend upon the watchfulness and obedience of a single soldier. Jesus said of the servant who was faithful over a few things, that he would be made ruler over many things.
Loyalty to the expressed desire of a majority in the branch church to which we belong often requires much earnest prayer and selflessness; but the fact that the majority favor a certain action would seem to indicate that step as the one which most are ready to take, therefore the one nearest right at the time. Waiting patiently on God to direct us, loyally abiding by the wish of the majority, laying aside all humanly formulated ideas of our own as to what should be done, we leave the way open for divine Principle to direct.
Our obedience to what divine Principle has revealed to us about our work should never tempt us to interfere with other workers in their respective places, nor erroneously to criticize their efforts. They have been placed there by the expressed wish of the majority; and obedience requires that they be left free to do their work according to their highest sense of what is right. We can surely help them best by knowing the omnipotence of Truth and the allness of God's good government, never doubting that all things will "work together for good to them that love God." Obedience to all rightly constituted authority is necessary; although such authority may be but a type or shadow of the perfect law of divine Principle. We may well honestly question ourselves whether we, as Christian Scientists, are setting the high example in this regard which our religion teaches and of which it renders us capable. Do we not need to watch carefully that so-called mortal mind does not deceive us into believing that we are serving God when we are being influenced, instead, by self-will?
When striving to bring healing to any discordant sense of friction which arises between individuals, it is often as necessary to get first a true spiritual concept in that case, as it is in healing any so-called physical difficulty. Have we ever been successful in bringing about physical healing while thought has been struggling with the many conflicting human beliefs about the case, and about the so-called material remedies which material sense believed necessary for its relief? Is it not just as necessary to turn away from all that is discordant in human relationships and associations, and to find the remedy in knowing the truth that governs all in harmony? It is only by knowing Truth that harmony can be demonstrated in either case. When thought is governed by spiritual sense, we shall surely find that all of God's children reflect Him under the government of divine Mind. The writings of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, if earnestly studied and heeded, reveal this healing truth, which blots out of our hearts and lives all that is discordant and unChristlike. By choosing whom we will serve,—that is, by refusing to obey self-will or material sense and letting spiritual sense guide us,—we find peace. We do not lose our individuality thereby; rather, do we begin to find and demonstrate it. Only by acquainting ourselves with God can we find our real selves, created in His image and likeness; and thus reflecting or expressing Truth, Life, and Love, we are transformed.
