"If God is Spirit and if He knows nothing of matter and material existence, how can He heal a sick body, save a failing business, and meet other needs of mankind?" This question is sometimes asked by one who has little or no knowledge of Christian Science.
The answer to the question of how Spirit reaches and heals mankind was given by Jesus many years ago. When his disciples brought to him a sick child whom they could not heal, the Master said (Matt. 17:21), "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." The word "fasting" ordinarily means to abstain from food. As Jesus used the word, it means to turn thought away from the material evidence of matter, disease, and lack. Thus we find that prayer and fasting are mental activities, in which God, Spirit, is acknowledged as All. And His creation is recognized as spiritual, including only perfect, indestructible, and unchanging ideas. This prayerful turning from matter to Spirit, from evil to good, so changes one's thought that sickness, or disorder in business, or inharmony in the home gives way to health, order, and harmony.
Jesus said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." He depended wholly on God, divine Mind, to supply him with right ideas wherewith to dispel every false belief, every evidence of sin, sickness, lack, and death. Everything he did was based on prayer and fasting—turning away from material testimony to gain the evidence of Spirit.
