When the blessed Master, Christ Jesus, taught by the wayside and proclaimed to his followers (Matt. 4:17), "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," he did not leave his listeners without hope of attaining an awareness of this kingdom and its fulfillment in their lives. He did not leave them in helpless states of disease and disability, of poverty and lack, of sin and vice. Upon these multitudes who had been lost in the mazes of confusion as to life and its meaning, there dawned a new hope as they listened to this transcendent message from the lips of the new prophet who had appeared in their midst.
Christ Jesus knew that there was a perfect co-ordination between his teaching of the truths concerning God and the demonstration or practical application of those truths. But the truth required of him, as it now requires of us all, purity of thought and life. Otherwise, we must needs fail in finding the fruitage of our work and efforts. Mary Baker Eddy states in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 94), "When all fleshly belief is annihilated, and every spot and blemish on the disk of consciousness is removed, then, and not till then, will immortal Truth be found true, and scientific teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially one."
Through Christian Science we learn what the kingdom of heaven is. Through this Science, we gain an understanding of what perfect God means and of what constitutes perfect man. Our real relationship with the Father-Mother is that of sons and daughters. How essential it is that we know ourselves as God's representative, expression, reflection, and manifestation. Only as we identify ourselves thus can we take this truth to our fellow beings who as yet have not learned who they really are. We must be healed of false belief of every name and nature, and especially is it essential to be healed of the belief of being mortal—sick, sinning, dying. Paul warned us not to defile the temple of God by entertaining false beliefs about ourselves or others. "For," he said (I Cor. 3:17), "the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
