One hears much these days about the necessity for proper rest, diet, and exercise. Although keeping a suitable balance in these things is sensible, Christian Scientists find that to devote too much interest to a material regimen does not remedy physical problems or offer any lasting satisfaction.
According to Christian Science, to depend on matter for strength, satisfaction, pleasure, vitality, beauty, and comeliness is to give matter power—to disobey the First Commandment by worshiping false gods. In Science, one learns that God, Spirit, is the only substance, Life, Truth, and Mind and that there is no other power or existence, because God is infinite, the All-in-all. As the Scriptures say, "In him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:28 Because life, substance, and intelligence are in and of God, to think of them as properties of matter is to deny the very nature of the one Supreme Being, His absolute allness, purity, and perfection, to disavow God as the only Life and to deny Spirit as infinite.
Christian Science shows that matter, being the very opposite of Spirit, is no more than an erroneous suggestion. As Mrs. Eddy states, "Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force." Science and Health, p. 310 This fraudulent mortal mind was aptly described by Jesus when he said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." John 8:44 Thus the suggestion and the suggester are nothing but lies, which are cast out by the Christlike understanding of Truth.
