How secure we feel when we can speak with authority. We know the subject we're talking about, and our words ring with the assurance that comes of certainty.
We all have times when we'd like to overcome timidity and speak the healing ideas of Truth and Love with assurance and dominion. And we can as we become familiar with the truth of being and realize the authority this truth gives us.
Our true selfhood is spiritual man, the manifestation of God, the perfect Mind. Man is not an inadequate mortal trying with trembling and fearful words to convey spiritual truths to others. Man is divine Mind's own expression! He is the very embodiment of Mind's intelligence, wisdom, and spiritual understanding. As God's manifestation, man reflects Mind's ability to express its own ideas in all their perfection. Man is God's reflection.
How vital and comforting these spiritual truths can be to anyone who is tempted to feel hesitant about expressing what he understands of Christian Science. Our true identity is formed and established by God to express what He is and does—to bear witness to the authority of divine Principle, the healing tenderness of divine Love, the clarity of Mind's intelligence. We must recognize and claim the facts of our spiritual identity; become familiar with the real selfhood of ourselves and others if we wish to speak with the authority born of spiritual understanding.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak 'as one having authority.'" Science and Health, p. 14.
We need to acknowledge that our true being is wholly spiritual, "entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living," because man lives in the allness of Spirit. Man is utterly familiar with "the Life divine" because that is his Life. As we begin to understand man's unity with God, this gives us a spiritual standpoint from which we can speak with authority about the healing truths of man's being.
To material sense the truth of man's spiritual nature and life does not seem true at all. But Christ Jesus said to the people listening to his words, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." John 8:28.
Christ Jesus was able to speak with authority and effectiveness to others because he lifted up the false human concept of man's identity to the spiritual idea or offspring of God. He understood that he was the Son of God and expressed the message of the Christ. He could speak from his spiritual understanding of life as it really is in Spirit and from his demonstrated unity with that divine Life. The Bible says that people were impressed with his teaching: "They were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." Mark 1:22
Do we perceive ourselves as uncertain, unpolished mortals who have little understanding of Christian Science and even less ability to express it? Then we must give up this false human belief and perceive our true identity as spiritual man, the clear and perfect expression of omniscient and omniactive Mind. When we recognize that the truth we express has its source in God's self-disclosure of His own perfection and allness, our words will ring with the authority that God Himself brings to our earnest convictions. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Science is an emanation of divine Mind, and is alone able to interpret God aright. It has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance,—the Comforter which leadeth into all truth." Science and Health, p. 127.
If the impulsion of the message comes from God, He also provides for its reception. In the oneness of divine Mind and its idea there can be no such thing as a holy message without its recipient. God speaks to His idea, man, and man hears His voice.
Before we can expect others to respect what we have won through our prayers and demonstration, we must learn to treasure it ourselves. Our demonstrations of God's presence, even if they seem insignificant to us, may be nuggets of gold to others. These spiritual experiences enable the authority of demonstration to shine through what we say. And isn't this the treasure the world needs—individuals convinced by their own demonstration that Life is to be found only in Spirit?
It is God Himself, divine Truth, that supports our understanding of Christian Science and gives us the ability to articulate it in tender, wise, powerful healing words. This understanding should give us the assurance that what we have to speak of Truth has validity and brings with it the presence of the healing Christ.
Mortal mind may claim we're unsure of our ability to express Truth in ways others will understand and accept. But when we speak with the assurance born of familiarity with man's true nativity in divine Life, we can annul these mortal fears. When we maintain steadfastly in thought what we individually understand, feel, and love about Christian Science, mortal mind will be silenced. The authority of Truth will be heard.
