If we would progress in the study of Christian Science, we must honestly ask ourselves whether we have accepted without reservation the vast statement of John, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." The word "now" is not qualified. It means just what it states. Not tomorrow, not in a future state, but at this present moment we are to realize and accept the fullness of real being, true sonship.
Never should one desert the standpoint of present perfection. Despite the evidence of the material senses, the negative suggestions of the carnal mind, the procrastination of human thought, alert Christian Scientists will accept and maintain the now of true being.
It is a general proclivity of students to declare this basic fact of true sonship in their daily work, but not to see the present possibility of going the whole way with their declaration. Reservations are mentally maintained, and they may say: "It is true in the absolute sense of things that 'now are we the sons of God,' but humanly, of course, we need gradually to work out of the mortal conception of being. We are now living in a material world and cannot jump from one state of existence to another, however much we would wish to do so!" Here it should be remembered that there are not two now's, two present states of being. There is only one! "Now are we the sons of God." On page 49 of "Unity of Good" Mary Baker Eddy writes: "There are not two realities of being, two opposite states of existence. One should appear real to us, and the other unreal, or we lose the Science of being. Standing in no basic Truth, we make 'the worse appear the better reason,' and the unreal masquerades as the real, in our thought."
