In Christian Science real joy and gratitude are recognized as resulting from spiritual understanding and not from human emotion. Emotional joy may quickly turn to sorrow, and emotional gratitude to resentment; but real joy and gratitude unfold more and more, crowning spiritualized consciousness with the emblem of heaven, the signet of divine sonship.
In Revelation (3:10, 11) the message refers to "the hour of temptation," and says, "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." What is that "which thou hast"? The answer given by Christian Science is, the spiritual understanding to perceive the truth. In his epistle, James declares, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
Should material sense seem to affirm the exact opposite, this is but "the hour of temptation;" and temptation is resisted by holding fast to the "perfect gift" and rejoicing in its presence, at the very moment when material sense is proclaiming its absence.
