Before I became a student of Christian Science, some Bible statements had a frightening effect on me. They pictured God to me as a tribal deity capable of both love and hate, of death and destruction, intent on ultimately burning up the whole heaven and earth.
Then I gained a fuller understanding of Jesus' words to the Pharisees, "The kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21; As I began to reason from this concept of the real heaven as a state of consciousness, I knew that what appears to be a material heaven and earth had to be a state of consciousness also, a false sense. With great relief I realized that this prophecy in II Peter must refer to individual thought: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?" II Pet. 3:10-12;
Have you ever experienced this day of God? I have. Having served in the medical field for many years and having been raised in a religion that interprets the Scriptures literally, I was truly in need of this dissolving of old material beliefs, or error. Paul tells us of this need in these words: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Rom. 8:6; And he also declares, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." II Cor. 3:5, 6;
