Joy is man's eternal heritage from God, in whom he lives, moves, and has his being. Joy flows naturally and copiously from its divine source to man, with no impediment or interruption to its perpetual activity. It eternally belongs to man, through reflection; and belief in its opposite, or its counterfeit, can never for an instant replace it. Mind is expressed; and it is forever expressed joyously. Therefore man, God's man, lives in a constant state of rejoicing.
What to so-called mortal mind appears as joy is but the antipode of this spiritual state of bliss. A material sense of joy produces suffering and sorrow, teaching mortals the falsity of so-called material pleasures. Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 536): "Through toil, struggle, and sorrow, what do mortals attain? They give up their belief in perishable life and happiness; the mortal and material return to dust, and the immortal is reached." The only true and certain way to escape the sufferings of material sense is to know but one Life, God, and His joyous idea, man,—to possess the spiritual understanding of reality. When mortals attain to the knowledge of the veritable nature of joy and its origin, they will find that "joy is no longer a trembler" (Science and Health, p. 298); but that it is as unchangeable and invariable as its divine source, and abundantly available to all. The giving up of personal joys may seem to the false sense of mortals to produce pain; but, through the destruction of belief in false joys, and the winning of unchangeable, unlimited, and eternal joy, mortals obtain—to the degree that they accept the real—the reign of harmony in their lives, reach the kingdom of heaven, untouched by sorrow and undisturbed by any claim of error. Every belief of life in matter, with its attendant material pleasures, being a denial of real Life with its concomitant joy, will produce its own suffering; and were it not so, mortals would be content to continue in the pursuance of an illusion, to go on dwelling in material darkness, instead of rising above this untrue sense into spiritual understanding, which includes true happiness.
God, whose command is to "rejoice evermore," will never fail to fulfill this command. The heart that continuously expresses gratitude for the manifold blessings of God will spontaneously rejoice, and will ever find in God the cause for rejoicing. Could a joyous cause produce an unlike effect? God's infinite universe joyously expresses its creator; and man, the highest of God's ideas, must necessarily express the maximum of joy. God created all things for His pleasure; and it is His eternal mandate that man shall rejoice to express His pleasure. Then, let us be His witnesses, and manifest such unbounded joy that the sorrowful world will see and acknowledge that our God is Love,—infinitely and eternally loving,—and that sorrow and trouble have no abiding place in Love, are never active, never true, never having a real cause or Principle; for God is the one and only cause of everything that exists. Since God alone is the source of man's joy and of everything that man has or is, let us lay hold of this true substance, and let go of those fleeting pleasures which are but illusions of mortal mind,—dreams of sense to be cast aside. Then the joy of Spirit will be realized.
All the so-called vicissitudes of life are unreal. There is but one Life; and it is man's prerogative to acknowledge no Life but God, to know that any belief in life apart from Him is but false belief,—a lie, the Adam-dream, which our Leader tells us is "the parent of all human discord" (Science and Health, p. 306). If the path sometimes seems dark, the Christian Scientist will rejoice because God gave to this age one who was so spiritually receptive to Truth that she was able to show us the way out of darkness into the glorious light of spiritual understanding, and to interpret for us the import of the sacred Word, so that finally we can attain the complete understanding which reveals man as harmoniously and eternally dwelling in divine Love.
Through the teachings and works of our great Exemplar, Christ Jesus, we are given the rules whereby to acquire the joys of Spirit; and through the writings of our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, we learn how to put those rules into practice. Thus, we learn to realize the ever-presence of Love and the falsity of any argument that would claim to separate, for an instant, Love and its idea, man.
"Now are we the sons of God." Let us declare the eternal fact that man is the joyous manifestation of his heavenly Father now. God has promised us His kingdom, and His Word "endureth for ever." Let us abide in His love, where there is rest and freedom from everything unlike Him. When the carnal mind claims we are burdened with sorrow, let us remember Jesus' words, "Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." Those beautiful words were spoken for us; and we should claim as our privilege the ability to accept them now.
Jesus was acquainted with the sorrows of mortal sense. He was tempted to believe in their reality just as we are; but he rose above them into the consciousness which joyfully acknowledges divine Mind as the only cause, and which gives thanks for its ever present activity. He rejoiced and taught his followers to do likewise. After his wonderful lesson on man's at-one-ment with the Father, and the impossibility of finding reality outside of Mind, he said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." So let each student of his words strive for the joy that is God's eternal gift to His children, and prove for himself the gracious promise, "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."
