Christian Science shows the great importance of watching our thinking so that our thoughts and deeds are always in perfect agreement with the law of God. By casting the weight of our thinking on the side of God, we find that there is no other side in God's scale, for He, Mind, is All, and there is no matter.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy uses the metaphor of scales to bring out the great importance of being right with God and always alert to the falsity of sense testimony. We read (p. 168): "If the scales are evenly adjusted, the removal of a single weight from either scale gives preponderance to the opposite. Whatever influence you cast on the side of matter, you take away from Mind, which would otherwise outweigh all else. Your belief militates against your health, when it ought to be enlisted on the side of health. When sick (according to belief) you rush after drugs, search out the material so-called laws of health, and depend upon them to heal you, though you have already brought yourself into the slough of disease through just this false belief."
Jesus taught that the power of God cannot be weighed in the scales of matter. He said (Matt. 6:24): "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Material sense testimony can give no hint of the truth of God and His idea, man, for the vision of spiritual reality can be gained only through spiritual understanding. Strict adherence to Godlike qualities of truthfulness, purity, fidelity, justice, love, and tenderness provides the foundation stones upon which to build happy, successful, harmonious lives.
In the book of Nehemiah, the Bible records the subtle arguments of mortal mind that would tend to confuse and darken consciousness and make one believe in a power opposed to God. Nehemiah was confronted with the carnal mind's aggressive suggestions which, if listened to, would have hindered him in the fulfillment of his mission. But he did not weigh the human in the scale with the divine. Instead, he went resolutely on, exposing the powerlessness of evil by the performing of his God-directed duties in his victorious battle of good over evil.
In her work "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy shows clearly the futility of temporizing with error, for error in any form has no place in the premises or conclusions of divine metaphysics. She says (p. 280): "You have come to be weighed; and yet, I would not weigh you, nor have you weighed. How is this? Because God does all, and there is nothing in the opposite scale. There are not two,—Mind and matter. We must get rid of that notion. As we commonly think, we imagine all is well if we cast something into the scale of Mind, but we must realize that Mind is not put into the scales with matter; then only are we working on one side and in Science."
The prophet Ezekiel indicates that the light and glory of God show the infinite distance between Truth and error. He says (18:29): "Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?" The subtle attempts of animal magnetism can never throw the scientific right thinker off his balance or hinder his true progress. There are no short cuts in the line of spiritual advancement, for mortal mind can offer no aid. Any attempt to mingle Truth and error will only end in failure.
To yield to the argument that one must occasionally use intoxicating liquor and tobacco in order to be popular or successful in business is to cast one's weight into the scale of worldliness.
The Biblical account of Naaman, the Syrian, who had attained a position of great wealth and importance and yet was unable to find a cure for his leprosy, shows that humility and a genuine desire to yield to the will of God are necessary in order to bring about a healing in Christian Science.
Naaman's experience shows that leprosy, like any other disease or inharmony, is entirely mental although it appears to the senses as a bodily condition, for the body is the medium through which mortal mind claims to enjoy and suffer. When Naaman was obedient and willing to give up arrogance, self-will, and egotism and to express the qualities of God, his health was immediately regained.
When a humble receptive thought looked to Jesus for help, the Christ, Truth, was always present to heal and save. The Master rebuked doubt and the lack of faith in spiritual means of healing. The healing of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment is an outstanding example of the importance of opening thought to the possibilities of divine power. Jesus perceived that she believed that all things are possible to God, for we read that he said to her (Matt. 9:22), "Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole."
A student of Christian Science who had suffered for a long time from a large growth on her head suddenly awakened to the fact that she was doubting the ability of God to heal her. She had experienced many other healings through Science, but this form of error had so mesmerized her by the seeming size and offensiveness of it that she had almost given up all hope of healing. When loving friends and relatives who were very-much concerned about her condition urged her to resort to surgery, she refused.
She saw that to depend upon material means for healing or to believe that something besides God might have to be resorted to would surely be casting the weight of her thinking on the side of matter and not of Mind. She therefore again sought help from a Christian Science practitioner with renewed courage and hope. The practitioner pointed out to her that she had allowed the belief to occupy her thought almost completely, and this falsity was simply a picture of thought objectified. The student saw that mortal mind and body are one and that the body is included in one's consciousness. She could see that the growth was but a construction of her own thinking. It was a mental impression that she had been entertaining. She saw too that there is in reality no matter, for all is Mind.
The glorious realization that God's man reflects the beauty of holiness, that form, color, and symmetry are spiritual, never touched by the frailty of sense testimony, so lifted her consciousness into eternal Truth that the growth softened, opened, and drained. Her head is now normal, and new hair covers the place where the growth used to be.
Our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 192): "Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise."
