The triumph of spiritual power over all adverse circumstances was implicit in all that Jesus said and did. With complete ascendancy, he refuted attacks upon his teachings. His healings were instantaneous, his authority unchallengeable. Even while he walked the earth, Jesus maintained his conscious sense of the kingdom of heaven. To his followers he said (Luke 12:32), "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." With these words of loving and compassionate understanding, Christ Jesus encouraged his disciples, first, to be unafraid, then to put into practice the spiritual facts of Life with which by example and by proofs of healing he was daily acquainting them. With what mingled feelings of incredulity, followed by hope and an eagerness to emulate the works of their much-loved Master, must his disciples have welcomed this assurance!
To those who followed Jesus, spiritual power was at first identified with him. They had been conscious of the power of the Word when uttered by Jesus, but its intrinsic quality as God-bestowed, to be embodied and expressed by all as spiritual nature or character, had been as yet unrecognized. That the power his followers had seen him display was actually available to them must have seemed wonderful indeed. The purpose of Life illustrated in the daily living of the Master was thus illumined for them. They were to learn that the kingdom, which it is the Father's good pleasure to bestow, was theirs by divine right, within the scope of individual spiritual attainment. The far-reaching, universal nature of this kingdom is understood through revelation, through consecration to the divine ideal. It has no human parallel.
The record of the Gospels should be followed with intelligent appreciation and with spiritual perception. If the story of Jesus' three-year ministry be analyzed, from this analysis will emerge some recognition of the steady and progressive victory of his spiritual understanding of Life and his absolute dominion over the discordant conditions which beset the human race. Christ Jesus opened wide the way to health and the heavenly kingdom, not as a miraculous exhibition and for a limited period, but as the natural expression of the divine nature to which all are entitled. From his life emerged the complete pattern of the way to demonstrate immortal life.
