In the Gospel of Luke it is related of Jesus that when "a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus, moved by that spiritual discernment with which he approached all problems, detected the personal outlook of his questioner and replied, "Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God." Since Jesus expressed good in his every thought and act, clearly he was not repudiating his own good living, but was emphasizing the impersonal nature of good as an ever present divine attribute, in contradistinction to the belief that it was a personal possession.
Having been informed by the ruler that he consistently obeyed the commandments, Jesus said to him, "Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, . . . and come, follow me." From a human point of view Jesus was asking him to do only that which he himself had already done. At the age of twelve, we are told, he declared that he must be about his Father's business, and at the age of thirty he was prepared to go out into the world with the sole object of being about his Father's business.
From the standpoint of Christian Science we recognize that the kingdom of God and eternal life cannot be gained by any form of depletion, for the kingdom of God contains all that is good and desirable. Here and now everything that is good is possible of realization by virtue of our reflecting God, the source of impersonal good. The power to reflect God is the normal and necessary outcome of conscious at-one-ment with divine Love. Any sense of ownership or personal possession of good, in belief, limits good, and obscures our birthright of unlimited good.
