In the closing days of his career our blessed Master gave his disciples some of the most important of all his teachings. From the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters of John's Gospel we find words of admonition by Christ Jesus to his chosen few, as well as prayers that they might see the light of Truth as he had seen it. In those hours of communion with the Father-Mother God he prayed not only in behalf of himself, but more especially for the protection and spiritual growth of these beloved disciples. He prayed that they might be made aware of their oneness, or unity, with God, even as he had been conscious of his.
Then Jesus said (John 17: 20) "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word." Christians of today are fully conscious of the fact that they too are included among those whom the Master prayed for. His prayer "that they all may be one" (John 17:21) is answered in Christian Science, for this blessed teaching gives us the understanding of man's sonship with God, through which we find our own oneness with Him as idea.
To be at one with God means to live and abide in Him. Thus we abide in divine intelligence, or Mind, as we reflect Mind's supreme wisdom, unlimited intelligence, infinite power. We abide in Spirit as we express Spirit's active, vital, energizing nature and strength and prove that the beneficence of God's perfect law of liberty brings liberation from all evil. We abide in Soul as we demonstrate its spiritual discernment, intuition, prophetic power, and beauty of holiness. We abide in Principle as we accept God as the one perfect cause, or noumenon, as the foundation of being. We abide in Life as we prove its emanations to be indestructible and eternal. We abide in Truth, the creative Being, as we hold thought to that which expresses the order and exactness of its law, allowing it to annihilate its opposite, or error. We abide in Love and fulfill all the law as we understand the Love which is both Mother and Father and see that we indeed live and have being in Love's presence or consciousness. Mary Baker Eddy gives Love as the last of seven synonyms for God, and she indicates that she considers this appellation the highest of all the names we have for God.
