There is nothing quite so satisfying as enjoying the fruits of one's labor. Worthy accomplishment brightens the life of many an individual. When one faces up to his responsibilities and meets them successfully, he is victorious, and his experience bears witness to the good he identifies and expresses.
Perseverance is an important quality to cultivate. Every claim of laziness, carelessness, and refusal to carry through to successful conclusion can be destroyed through this attribute.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives as part of the definition of "perseverance": "continuance in a state of religious or spiritual grace until it is succeeded by a state of glory."
Perseverance demonstrates the constancy and continuity of being that expresses God's omnipresence and omnipotence. Since God is infinite and All, He is immortal Being and is expressed in the real individuality of each one of us. There is no limitation to real being; it has been, is, and will be forever. We become increasingly aware of the continuity of being in the degree that we exercise with perseverance the spiritual qualities of God, good, in thinking and in life.
As ideas of God, we embody, by reflection, God's nature. Integrity, usefulness, goodness, love, and so forth constitute individual consciousness. These spiritual characteristics are forever individual. The more consistent we are, identifying and expressing the uninterrupted activity of right ideas in consciousness, the more perfectly we bear witness to our sonship with God.
Phases of human will claiming to obscure the continuity of good in individual consciousness must be rooted out and destroyed. Self-justification, self-pity, self-indulgence, emanate from so-called mortal mind, which testifies to God's supposititious opposite. When such errors occupy human thinking, they divorce one, in belief, from spiritual being because they hide the presence of spiritual good.
The stubborn will of mortal mind sustains hatred, jealousy, fear, sensuality, lawless thinking and living. Such evils in consciousness give seeming reality to minds many, to discord, incurability, sin, and sickness. This mental malady is destroyed in the degree that the spiritual qualities of God, divine Love, are identified and expressed with perseverance.
In his message to the Corinthians, Paul said, "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." II Cor. 12:10; Referring to this statement, Mrs. Eddy writes, "The Science of Paul's declaration resolves the element misnamed matter into its original sin, or human will; that will which would oppose bringing the qualities of Spirit into subjection to Spirit."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 201;
Human will sometimes counterfeits perseverance. Being of mortal mind's so-called origin, its seeming presence is destroyed by obedience to God's will, by entertaining and expressing the ideas of God instead of mortal-mindedness.
The only real source of thoughts, as revealed in Science, is God, divine Mind. Thoughts of true consciousness do not ebb and flow. There is an unbroken continuity of good, which reflects the unchanging nature of divine Love. We need to feel and express more of the unbroken continuity of being. As the spiritual understanding of God and of our identity in God's image and likeness comes to light, the reactions of mortal mind lessen in consciousness, and the uninvadable nature of real being is demonstrated.
Mrs. Eddy says, "Faith illumined by works; the spiritual understanding which cannot choose but to labor and love; hope holding steadfastly to good in the midst of seething evil; charity that suffereth long and is kind, but cancels not sin until it be destroyed,—these afford the only rule I have found which demonstrates Christian Science."p. 338;
The sincerity with which we exercise dominion over every ungodlike thought is measured in the degree that the forces of God's moral, spiritual law govern thinking and conduct. By being Godlike, we avail ourselves of the spiritual power of the Christ. Letting the ideas of divine Love govern, we continue in a state of grace.
Christ Jesus emphasized the quality of importunity in prayer. He said: "Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not : the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." Luke 11:5-8;
He who sincerely thinks and lives in accord with righteousness as taught and explained in Christian Science is persistent in good. Righteousness is right thinking, right feeling, right acting. Done joyously day by day, it strengthens human thinking spiritually. We must persist and activate the Christ consciousness in necessary measure so that it destroys the sense of evil and discord and protects us from harm and heals us morally and physically.
A student in one of Mrs. Eddy's classes recalls that she asked, " 'What is the best way to do instantaneous healing?' She answered her own question: 'I will tell you the way to do it. It is to love! Just live love—be it—love, love, love.'" We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Second Series, p. 49
To be consistent, we must live what we understand spiritually. If we are not thinking and living in ever-increasing degree as sons of God, we are not being consistent. Inconsistency is destroyed as the determination to be Godlike strengthens our obedience, so that being obedient is natural and normal and we joyfully bear witness in some measure to our identity, which is God's reflection.
The profitable study and application of Christian Science refreshes human thinking with spiritual ideas, which expand into being and doing good. Spiritual understanding changes the elements of human thought, making it more spiritual, and the nature of human behavior, making it more Christlike.
It might take much mental wrestling, much courage, much patience, to see that consciousness and actions are aligned with spiritual being. Moment by moment, day by day, there must be this willingness. As we proceed in the spiritualization of human thinking and conduct, we weave a tapestry of beauty, fulfillment, and success, which is not always discernible during the period of spiritual regeneration but is realized and experienced when the necessary spiritualization of consciousness is achieved.
