WE can never be Christian Scientists until we know what and where God is; we cannot know man, we cannot know the true nature of ourselves, until we first know God. Our great need is to draw closer to God. The work, then, of the Christian Scientist is to seek to know and to express the nature, character, or qualities of Deity, and to reject as untrue or nonexistent all that is unlike Him. Life eternal is to know and to love God.
The Master's promise to the lawyer was that he should live by knowing and loving God supremely, and by expressing that knowledge and that love in his actions. If we would know man as he is, we must know God as He is; if we would know ourselves as God's children, we must first know God. And each of us must know God for himself. The utmost one individual can do for another is to reflect to him what he knows of God. By this it is not meant that we may not call upon each other for help in time of need, but that individual salvation from all error depends upon each individual's understanding the truth of all being for himself.
It is the nature of Deity, the nature of divine Principle, to reveal Himself to the honest, seeking heart. Jesus said, "Seek, and ye shall find." God is always the same infinite, almighty, all-wise Principle. He is always present for each one of us to seek and to find, to understand and to demonstrate. How do we gain the knowledge of God? By giving earnest heed to holier and higher hopes, aspirations, and desires; for these in individual experience are evidence of the presence of "the Spirit of God" —the Spirit which is God—moving upon "the face of the waters" of each human consciousness, imparting the light of spiritual understanding and revealing man as the divine image and likeness.
