On page 246 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes: "Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight."
It is truly a joy to realize that man lives in the eternal presence and fullness of God's love now and forever. Christian Science teaches that this eternality of life is the spiritual fact of every child of God, Love's perfect reflection. In the vast forever of infinite good there has never been a lapse from Truth's ever-presence, from Mind's continuous manifestation of intelligence, from Love's protective power, and from Life's constant expression of right activity.
With the desire to understand this nowness of spiritual living, we may gain further enlightenment in this Biblical passage (Eccl. 3:15): "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." This verse puzzled the writer until one day she reasoned that if she placed complete trust in God and His loving care for her in what humanly is often spoken of as the hereafter, then she should know that His presence had always been with her, divinely guiding and blessing her in the present as well as in the so-called past.
To acknowledge God's perfection, His glory, omnipresence, and omnipotence, brings to view the freedom, joy, beauty, and peace forever at hand in the nowness of the kingdom of heaven, in which man lives harmoniously and continuously.
The sincere desire to "shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity" demands that we do something constructive right now, right where we are in our understanding of Christian Science. We can appreciate and enjoy the spiritual good we now know and express. To find more true beauty and loveliness evidenced in our present experience, we may need to discard what we have been falsely educated to accept as inherited tendencies to weaknesses of character or susceptibility to disease or evil of any kind. These cruel beliefs, if admitted into our thought and experience, will blight, not freshen, our present living. To be freed from the bondage of materiality, we need to awaken to the truth that God is our Father-Mother and that man is not a mortal but an individual expression of divine Mind.
No lie of mortality is ever true—be it sin, disease, discord of any nature, whether it claims to have power in the present or to be feared in the future. Regardless of the false sense testimony, which mortal man has been tricked into believing as the true condition, the Christ, Truth, is present to heal, correct, and adjust, right where distress seems to be.
How encouraging it is to learn that God's law is all-powerful and ever active, that this law knows no opposing power, and that no lying negative law of material belief in evil can attach itself to God's man now or ever! A belief in evil has no intelligence, no pattern, no capacity to make itself real. This must be demonstrated, for a Christian Scientist does not ignore claims of evil but replaces them with the practical, spiritual truth. Rejoicing because of spiritual progress in proving error's unreality, the student learns and actively proves that man's purity, goodness, and completeness have never been touched by evil.
Man's rich legacy, his spiritual birthright as God's child, contains no material beliefs or mortal tendencies. This legacy includes only the good, the true, the beautiful—all that is real—and it belongs to man now, in the present, not merely in the future.
To infinite Love, man is perfect, but we ourselves must learn of man's true relationship to God; we must learn to appreciate man's present perfection in order to shed the false belief in mortality. How grateful we can be that we have the master Christian, Christ Jesus, to furnish the pattern of guidance Spirit-ward and to have Christian Science to explain and amplify the Master's teachings! As we follow the example and instruction of the Master, our thought is purified, and we grow in our ability to resist with spiritual understanding the mortal concept that there is an existence separate from God.
As our thought Is spiritualized and we express more Christlike qualities, we shall find ways and means to correct the beliefs of unhappy human experiences. These may be events in the past—trials, physical distresses, or remorse for certain actions. These past disturbances often come to thought and impose themselves upon us in the present.
We know how useless it is to look back and wish that we had acted differently in any human situation. But do we utilize these past mistakes as guideposts in the present? Of course, we cannot go back and correct the mistake of the past, but we can meet our moral and spiritual obligations in the present and find in them a correction of our belief in past evil.
For instance, if a lack of understanding and loving-kindness seemed to cause past disturbances, then we can today find the opportunity to be more loving, kind, and considerate. If the disturbance was caused by a lack of complete honesty in our conversation or dealings with others, we can start being more honest in the smallest thing that comes to us each day. We can gain the true sense of integrity as a quality of God and find the spiritual power of integrity being evidenced more and more in our daily living.
In this joy-filled way we shall find the errors of the past disappearing from our thought, for the Christliness expressed in the present will dispel the darkness of remorse in any form. Mrs. Eddy gives this loving counsel in her article "Voices of Spring" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 330): "It is good to talk with our past hours, and learn what report they bear, and how they might have reported more spiritual growth. With each returning year, higher joys, holier aims, a purer peace and diviner energy, should freshen the fragrance of being."
Christian Science teaches us, not to look to a future time for good, not to believe that good was absent in the past, but to awaken to the ever-present good that is resident in our consciousness to be enjoyed today. As we press toward the light of immortality, the dark images of decrepitude or age and its so-called limitations of usefulness will fade, and we shall begin to glimpse the loveliness all around us and find more beauty in Christian living. This aliveness opens thought to new vistas of existence that are fresh and inspiring.
God's provision for man includes an abundant supply of health, joy, love, new ideas, which, when applied humanly, provide interesting activity in daily purposeful living. Jesus was conscious of this ever-presence of good, which includes an eternal expectancy of its fulfillment, when he said (John 10:10), "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Let us begin today to apply these truths and enlarge our understanding of man, God's child, living joyously in the eternal now.
