The hour in which we accept the Christ wholeheartedly marks a decision which establishes us as followers of Christ Jesus in faith and in deed. That hour may come to us when, in the throes of a struggle with temptation or personal desire, we are able to rise above self-will to the spiritual altitude where it is possible for us to say, as the Master did in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:39), "Not as I will, but as thou wilt."
In taking his stand for the will of God, Christ Jesus was at the same time reaffirming his complete acceptance of his true selfhood as the Christ, or Son of God. And the Christ, we should remind ourselves frequently, is likewise our own true, eternal selfhood as God's reflection. Christ Jesus let the will of God take its exalted course in him in order that he might carry through God's plan for his own salvation and for the salvation of the world. Jesus' complete surrender to the will of God enabled him to achieve the resurrection and the ascension and thus prove that life is wholly spiritual and indestructible.
Mary Baker Eddy says in her definition of "will" in the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 597), "Will, as a quality of so-called mortal mind, is a wrong-doer; hence it should not be confounded with the term as applied to Mind or to one of God's qualities." Erring human will always impels a wrong decision and makes the wrongdoer a tool of aggressive evil suggestion.
