A LARGE part of humanity's efforts seems to be expended in the endeavor to multiply its material possessions and replenish its losses. To many, indeed, life appears to be a dreary grind, with opportunity for service and the result of labor uncertain. Because mankind has made the mistake of turning to matter instead of to God, Spirit, as the source of supply, it is continually bewildered by the contradictory evidence of satiety on the one hand and lack on the other.
We must therefore learn to turn to God first and always, and to reject the false sense of matter as substance. We must maintain in our thinking the true concept of supply as spiritual, a concept which admits neither satisfaction in material abundance nor fear of not having enough to meet legitimate needs. To turn to God in all one's thinking, and to stay there, is to inherit the divine substance of right ideas, which, expressed in intelligent activity, bring daily supplies to meet our needs in such form as we can avail ourselves of, as, for example, food, shelter, clothing, health, right work, and helpful companionship.
On page 587 of the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy gives the following definition of "God," which is invaluable to every honest claimant of his true inheritance as God's own child: "God. The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence." We need to know our Father-Mother God in order that we may prove our true relationship to Him and, by conforming to divine law, realize our spiritual inheritance of the substance of good. To every individual seeker for Truth, these scientific terms for God are invaluable in demonstrating the allness of God through right thinking, whereby we may prove that the beliefs of so-called mortal mind are the extremes of superabundance and deficiency, and are false in both premise and conclusion.
God, divine Principle, is immutable, invariable, and His laws are both understandable and workable. Consciously to multiply true thoughts in conformity with this Principle—with Truth and Love—is to demonstrate honesty and loving-kindness in one's business dealings and in social and home relations. To know one's true self as the image and likeness of God enables one to reflect spiritual ability, humility, and gratitude, and thus replenish seeming lack. Life, God, the source of all good, is always expressing health, strength, and wisdom in His idea, man. To realize that God is Mind, and that spiritual man reflects the divine intelligence, enables one rightly to carry on any desirable activity.
In realizing that God is Soul, Spirit, one may learn to discipline false mortal tendencies, to exchange lust, envy, malice, hate, and other evil suggestions for right desires, or spiritual-mindedness, and to make a more courageously faithful effort to destroy the carnal beliefs which tempt one.
The Revelator proved his spiritual relationship to Love even when unjustly exiled on the desert island of Patmos. Even there, in his isolation, he was able to prove himself in the holy place of the Most High and to appropriate his inheritance of love. It is plain that his meek, but confident, appropriation of his divine inheritance at that seemingly difficult stage of his human experience resulted in his giving to the world the book of Revelation.
Each individual may come to a desert place in his human experience. He may seem to be exiled from health, happiness, home—from all that he has held most dear; and he may believe that he must go somewhere else to find what he seems to lack. At such a time, let the dear wanderer stand where he is, and strive to realize that God is All and that God must, therefore, be where he himself is. Let this realization of God's omnipresence come into his consciousness to guard and guide his next step. He will then surely be set on the right path, and will safely reach the promised land, where all needs are met.
In proportion as the coffers of our thinking are emptied of false fleshly inheritances, such as greed, pride, fear, discord,—all the evil brood of satanic suggestions,—we make room for our divine inheritance, which enriches the receptive individual consciousness. Starting with the understanding that God is the only creator and lawgiver, and translating this divine fact into practice, will result in tangible evidence of peace, plenty, joy, hope, faith, health, and happiness.
The beloved Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, who throughout her writings spiritually interprets the Bible, tells of her solitary, but sweet, calm search for the Science of Mind-healing, and of winning her "way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 109). Because it is individual, this search for the truth is solitary; because guided by divine Love, it is sweet and calm. Each must individually seek his divine birthright; and as he reasons intelligently, and puts into practice what he learns, he receives the revelation of Truth and experiences the demonstration that surely follows a right, scientific understanding of God and of spiritual man in His likeness.
Let us strive to realize how loving thoughts conform to God's command, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." How such thinking subdues the evil beliefs—the ignorance, sin, disease, lack, greed, hate, and death—that seem so real!
Good is contagious. Because God is its infinite source, it may be exhaustlessly and continuously multiplied. Each one, then, has his part to perform in bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth; for did not Christ Jesus, our incomparable Way-shower, say with illuminating clarity and divine tenderness, "The kingdom of God is within you"? The Master also likened the kingdom of God to a grain of mustard seed, thus illustrating, by calling attention to its familiar spreading qualities and its strong and sturdy growth, how right thoughts will multiply and replenish with the fruitage of divine ideas a seemingly devastated state of human experience.
Instructed through the teachings of Christian Science how to follow God in all His ways, humanity would not expend its efforts in seeking and storing up materiality, but in seeking good, in spreading the truth, and in replenishing experience with the right ideas emanating from divine Mind, God. Far from depriving us of the wherewithal to meet our human needs, this process corrects our often distorted sense of supply and demand, accomplishes the demonstration of an abundant supply to meet these human needs, and replenishes every seeming deficiency by irrefutable proof of the abundant resources of God reflected in His image and likeness, man.
Do you know the commonest command in Scripture is Fear not. Times without number in the Word of God rings out upon us, Thou shalt not be afraid. For courage is at the roots of life, and it is the soil in which every virtue flourishes.—
