IT is revealed in the Scriptures and emphasized in the teachings of Christian Science that God is Love. It follows then that man, who is made in God's likeness, is by nature loving and lovable. Unloving traits, which seem to inhere in mortal mind, are not overcome through dwelling on faults and shortcomings as realities nor through self-condemnation, but by turning one's thoughts frequently and understandingly to man's already established perfection in Mind, and by claiming the loving qualities which eternally belong to God's ideas by virtue of reflection.
In the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, given by Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," occurs the declaration (p. 17), "And Love is reflected in love." As we go about our daily affairs, each of us may with profit ask himself or herself: Am I reflecting God, divine Love, continuously and impartially, through the expression of loving qualities in all my human activities? Am I watchful to manifest loving-kindness in small matters as well as in the seemingly more important ones?
One who is earnestly working to overcome in his thinking every trace of such erroneous qualities as malice, criticism, envy, resentment, irritability, and self-righteousness is little inclined to talk about love; he is too busy endeavoring to live it. The presence of love need not be heralded by words, for love is self-expressive. John admonished the Christians of his day (I John 3:18), "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." Loving thoughts inevitably find their expression in loving words and deeds.
