Christ Jesus said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." To the searcher for release from sickness and disease, this statement is of the utmost importance; first, because in the words "when ye pray" is plainly indicated the method of healing advocated by the Master, and secondly, because in the words "believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them," it is shown that healing will follow confident and expectant prayer. Furthermore, in the Master's words is found the answer to the question often asked, "When shall I be healed?" indicating that the individual comes to the realization of healing through spiritual discernment, not through the passage of time.
Instantaneous healing was accomplished throughout the Master's redemptive mission. The element of time did not enter into his healing work, and it was removed from the thought of those whom he healed. His procedure in healing indicated expectancy of immediate results. His spiritual understanding of the nothingness of disease, as either a past or a present experience, and his clear discernment of man's present perfection as God's spiritual child endowed his ringing statements with power; and the Scriptures record that his words were followed immediately or straightway by the cleansing of leprosy, the healing of palsy, epilepsy, blindness, dumbness, deformity, and the overcoming of death. In no case could his words when healing the sick be construed to refer to some future time, for he brought them definite healing in the immediate present. To the woman bowed together eighteen years Jesus simply said, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity," and when he had uttered these words, "immediately she was made straight, and glorified God."
Mary Baker Eddy, in the year 1866, discovered Christian Science. She proved beyond question its efficacy to heal quickly, thoroughly, and permanently, and then gave her revelation to the world in her published writings. Through spiritual interpretation of the Scriptural teaching she provided a ready answer for every question regarding health, an interpretation which sets at nought material sense in its every phase and claim to power. The student of Christian Science, through his study of Mrs. Eddy's writings in connection with the Scriptures, discerns that instantaneous healing is always a present possibility, and this, too, in whatever form discord is manifest. He must work earnestly, and he may in some instances have to work persistently, in order to prove that this is true; nevertheless, he knows that it is true. His conclusions are based upon the irrefutable logic that, since God's work is good and is finished, as the Scriptures affirm, spiritual healing is now and always has been a present possibility, not something which must be brought about through the passage of time. According to the Biblical record, "God created man in his own image," and herein the fact of man's eternal perfection is established. It must be plain to every Christian Scientist that perfection does not need healing, and that imperfection does not now and never did exist as a part of the perfect man of God's creating; and there is no other real man.
