The Bible records God's promises of freedom from sin, disease, and death. How often the heart weighted by woe asks this question: "Are God's promises for me?" Christian Science declares that God's promises are for all mankind. Fulfillment takes place in human experience as we grow in spiritual understanding of our real selfhood, made in the image and likeness of God, and as we are obedient to spiritual law, which requires the acknowledgment of God's eternal goodness as the only reality.
It is helpful to consider prayerfully the degree of understanding and obedience practiced by Abraham when God promised him that he would be (Rom. 4:20, 21), "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform." Abraham's reliance on God and his willingness to give to God the glory due His name resulted in fulfillment of the promise.
Christ Jesus demonstrated the fulfillment of God's promises by his healing works. He was able to do this because he acknowledged God as the only Mind and understood the real man to be the creation of God, never expressed in or through matter. Mary Baker Eddy knew that the comfort and hope inherent in the Master's words and works were for all mankind, in all times, and under all circumstances. In reference to Jesus' God-appointed mission to prove the supremacy of spiritual law and the unreality of material law, Mrs. Eddy makes this statement in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 328, 329): "The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following."
The turmoil of what is termed human experience may seem to suggest that God's promises are not reaching all people. Perhaps we are floundering in a sense of confusion, indecision, and discouragement. The need is to awaken from the dream that man is separated from God and to let thought be receptive to God's promises. Let us heed the comforting words of the Psalmist promising divine guidance (Ps. 32:8): "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."
Man is never out of God's sight, never beyond God's direction. God's ideas cannot be separated from their source. Christian Science teaches that the suggestion of many minds cut off from God, burdened with a false sense of responsibility, dangling helplessly on the brink of despair, is an illusion. Divine Mind embraces, sustains, and governs its own ideas.
The promise of God's unfailing direction has been fulfilled in the writer's experience on many occasions when the course of human events has threatened to become difficult. A sense of tension, of too much to do, of doubt as to proper procedure, has been dispelled by mentally withdrawing from the onrush of human activity long enough to listen for God's promises and to declare quietly, "God is my Mind."
With this declaration has come the comforting assurance that there is no tension in spiritual consciousness, no task too great for divine intelligence, no faltering indecision in supreme wisdom; therefore none of these can be present in the man of God's creating, who lives and moves in divine Mind, God. Understanding this fact, one finds that false suggestions cannot enter or govern his experience.
Does bondage to sickness and pain make the fulfillment of God's promises seem remote? Let all who long for freedom from suffering take heart, for the promise of healing is within reach of all who understanding, expectantly, and obediently look to God. Mrs. Eddy says on page 55 of Science and Health, "Truth's immortal idea is sweeping down the centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning." She adds in the same paragraph: "The promises will be fulfilled. The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is throughout all time."
Christ Jesus demonstrated the healing power of God over and over again. He uttered irrevocable words of assurance, which today justify our accepting God's promises and utilizing the same divine power which Jesus employed. That God's promises are being fulfilled today is proved by the many voices lifted in Christian Science churches throughout the world, expressing gratitude for healings, and by testimonies appearing in the Christian Science periodicals. Healing takes place as one, aroused from the false sense of material selfhood, catches sight of the true selfhood, the reflection of Spirit. God's promise stated by Isaiah is being realized (58:8), "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily."
There is no inharmonious condition, no anxiety, no terror, no grief that cannot be destroyed by one's accepting the infinite promise of divine Love, God. Love brings the tender, compassionate power of the Christ as close to us as our thinking, leaving no space for the intervention of error's false claims of sin, discord, and heartache. Love, revealing God's allness, enables us to reject the suggestion that there can be any unloveliness in His divinely coordinated universe, any quality opposed to God in His divine idea, man. The comforting promises of Love are ever available, even in the face of what seem to be fear, envy, hatefulness, lust, cruelty, dishonesty, and greed. The all-power of Love can break the mesmerism of all discordant false suggestions, including that of death.
Let us, like Abraham, give glory to God and stagger not at the magnitude of His goodness. Let us be fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able to perform. That Christ Jesus did bring the promises of God, not only to those who shared his earthly experience, but to all mankind, is evidenced in his words to his disciples (John 10:16), "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." The words of the Master come down through the ages, seeking entrance today at the threshold of our thought. God's promises are for all.
