God loves us. This truth underlies all teaching of the Bible and of Christian Science. God loves each one of us infinitely because He knows us as His image and likeness. It is a fair question to ask if we love ourselves as God loves us. One answer may be found in how diligently we work for ourselves.
In Christian Science the word "work" is often used interchangeably with the word "prayer." By "work" we mean a spiritually mental effort to understand and apply scientific truths of God and man to whatever situation presents itself. Prayerful work is spiritual communion with God. As we grow in the understanding of God as Spirit, everywhere and all-inclusive, we learn to include all peoples and events in our prayers. But do we faithfully include ourselves?
Our prayers are a measure of our love. Thus, in the measure that we love ourselves as God loves us, we pray for ourselves. This may seem to imply self-centerdness. On the contrary, it demands a complete dissolving of one's human, material sense of self in the spiritual understanding of one's identity as God's perfect reflection. It also demands constancy in maintaining one's freedom from all that is unlike Christliness. Is not this work sometimes left undone because we are not keeping an alert watch over our thinking?
