Answered prayer, as understood in Christian Science, is never happenstance. God doesn't just happen to answer prayers. Prayer is a two-way street. In order to get answers to prayers, one has to put something into them. Christ Jesus prayed, and Christian Scientists endeavor to put into prayer what he did: purity and a spiritual consistency in every thought and act. He didn't have to acquire these; he was endowed with them. But mortals have to attain purity and spiritual consistency to pray as he did. This should be the goal of every Christian.
In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."Science and Health, p. 1. Here are three requirements: absolute faith in God, and Jesus had that; a spiritual understanding of Him, and Jesus had that; and unselfed love, and Jesus certainly had that.
Absolute faith in God comes through an understanding of Him that does away with any mystery about Him. Such an understanding is gainable through study of Christian Science.
