Reconciled! What does it mean? Does one utter the word with a sigh and feel that there will follow a period of dull adjusting and conforming? This negative sense may linger in consciousness because of some experience in which one has attempted to become reconciled to something less than God. The thought of becoming reconciled to God has a very different ring. It is joyous, stimulating, active, and progressive.
An individual awakened to the comfort and healing power of divine Science learns truly to be reconciled to God. This leads him into rich fields of usefulness and the unfoldment of good. Many of those healed by the Master, Christ Jesus, left all and followed Jesus in the way, taking some active part in his ministry. Those who progress most rapidly in Christian Science do much the same thing. In gratitude for their blessings they hasten to put off the old ways and modes of mortal thought and find their thinking conforming ever more closely to the inspiration of the Christ-idea.
It is a logical propulsion which induces many who have been healed through Christian Science to join a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, and also The Mother Church. Their motive is to find orderly channels through which to share their new-found joy with others who may be seeking release and healing. Joining the church is a step in one's becoming reconciled to God, reconciled because one has tasted of God's great love and found it altogether good.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 35): "Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love. We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love,—casting out error and healing the sick." Through reconciliation with God, we find a new birth, a new way of life, which continues to unfold until we have put off all old concepts, all mortal, material, limited thinking. It is not contemplated that we should delay this step of church membership until all this growth has been accomplished. The pure desire to begin and to continue in accord with the Principle of Christian Science is what is required.
The harmonizing of one's life and one's aims in order to conform to Principle constitutes a substantial part of one's progress in reconciliation. This progress must necessarily bless all those with whom one comes in contact. Personal sense may attempt to delay both individual and collective progress by attaching error to individuality. But we must see through its effort and defeat its purpose. Attaching good to personality is another phase of this false claim. Jesus pointed out to the one who came calling him "Good Master" that "there is none good but one, that is, God" (Matt. 19: 16, 17).
Domination either imposed or imposing is always opposed to God's government. Human will and stubborn outlining obstruct one's progress in the reconciliation process. God's will is always the direct way. Could we sincerely pray (Matt. 6:10), "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," if we were not convinced that the will of God included all good for His ideas? Even at Gethsemane, near the end of his glorious ministry, Jesus prayed earnestly (Luke 22: 42), "Not my will, but thine, be done." His willingness to do God's will resulted in the utmost good for himself and for all mankind.
As we prepare ourselves to minister more largely to the needs of mankind, we may find it difficult to reconcile these preparations with the demands of our immediate family, our business, and our friends. These demands may have seemed all-absorbing in the past. But now they should yield to the order of the wider unselfed service. We can be confident that as divine Love guides us in this transition, only greater good for all can be experienced.
Perhaps an instance in my experience may serve to illustrate this point. Never having learned to cook with ease, I found that one of the things which loomed as a problem at the time that I accepted the position as First Reader in a Christian Science Society was the necessity to prepare and serve an evening meal for my family before being in my place each Wednesday evening for the Wednesday testimony meeting. The thought came to me that what would be most beneficial to myself and to the greatest number could be achieved by my putting the Wednesday meeting first and foremost in the order of that day. Here was a higher sense of feeding the hungry. The readings from the Bible and from Science and Health would be nourishing that Christian Science Society and the community with Truth and Love. The results of this emphasis on spiritual preparation were surprising. We invariably had better meals on Wednesday than I had ever produced before, and a new ease and joy in cooking accompanied the getting of them. The love that went into the preparation for the Wednesday meeting lent grace to this everyday task as well, thereby blessing the family circle richly.
Our homes, our businesses, and our friends benefit from our enlarged understanding and our growth in grace. As such efforts are made and victories gained, the reconciliation with God, good, becomes more complete, for we are working with God's help and love all the way. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 19), "Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus' teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit,—the law of divine Love."
We must guard diligently against those whisperings of mortal mind which suggest, "Be reconciled to error." Appearing as false, human tendencies they may urge, "Be reconciled to the line of least resistance," or, "Be reconciled to the ceaseless demands of mortal existence; there really isn't time for anything else these days." With God-given dominion, let us take full advantage of our privileges and opportunities as church members. Through our loyal and faithful demonstration of divine Love, we shall find ourselves redeemed from "the law of matter, sin, and death," from limitation, from a false sense of self and inactivity. Ample means for usefulness are found as we are guided unerringly by the By-Laws in the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy. Under the heading "Church Organizations Ample" we read in part (Art. VIII, Sect. 15), "God requires our whole heart, and He supplies within the wide channels of The Mother Church dutiful and sufficient occupation for all its members."
Paul wrote (II Cor. 5:18, 20): "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. . . . Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." Having felt something of the peace, satisfaction, and healing which result from our being reconciled to God, we graciously accept "the ministry of reconciliation," and it is this ministry which motivates our activity as church members.
