When Jesus was in the synagogue on a Sabbath day, he saw a man with a withered hand. Regardless of the accusing thoughts of the scribes and Pharisees about healing on the Sabbath, Jesus gave the man three succinct commands: "Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. . . . Stretch forth thy hand."Luke 6:8, 10; We find a lesson in obedience here. First the man rose up, then he stood forth, and then he stretched forth his hand. The Bible tells us, "And his hand was restored whole as the other."
Obedience was a firm requisite in Christian healing as Jesus taught it. Was not the command to "rise up, and stand forth in the midst" a command to the man to awaken from the mesmeric state he was in and rise from false belief? The man's obedience to these first two commands was preparatory to obeying the final demand: "Stretch forth thy hand." When he did this, he was healed.
Christian Science teaches us how to be obedient to the law which Christ Jesus taught and which enabled him to heal the sick. God's law is universal and forever operative. It governs all that is real and eternal. We do not change this law or make it operate. We obey it and apply it to our human experiences. Thus we dispel the so-called mortal laws which chain mankind to false beliefs and practices. Mrs. Eddy says, "Obedience to material law prevents full obedience to spiritual law,—the law which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind."Science and Health, p. 182;
