I Love Bible Verses. They say so much in such fresh ways as we start grasping their spiritual meaning. Take, for example, this verse from Isaiah, which represents God as saying of His Word, "It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." And we read in the following verses, which refer to Israel's deliverance from Babylon: "For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace .... Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree."1
Christ Jesus didn't limit
God's healing power
in any way, and we
don't have to either.
I've read that passage many a time, but a while back I was reading it again, and I realized its promise more clearly than ever before. I saw that when we really believe the Word of God, and confidently know it will accomplish its purpose, we will not only be joyful and at peace; the thorns in our lives will be replaced by evidence of God's goodness.
Just think of that. Joy and peace instead of thorns! No longer, then, do we have to feel down and out, physically hurting and upset because of some sharp-pointed disappointment, annoyance, or illness.
"But," you might say, "these things happen! Challenges do hit us all right and left." True. But as we spiritually dig deeper into the Bible, and begin understanding a little more clearly the healing power of God's Word, we start seeing that the thorns can disappear, even instantaneously!
Christ Jesus' healing works proved this, and the Science of Christ helps us follow his example. As we study the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, we see that through prayer we can emerge from a miserable mortal, material picture of ourselves and find healing.
How do we do this? By letting the timeless spiritual truths in those books take over our thought, and grow and develop there. Then we start seeing that we don't have to be pushed around or hurt by any person, situation, or bodily symptom. Why? Because we see that our true being is Godlike, wholly spiritual and good, invulnerable to evil, governed entirely by God. That's a permanent, fixed fact. It's not a variable theory. Our real selfhood is not subject to stress or strain, controversy or discussion, accident or calamity, heredity or ancestry, disease or disfiguration, or even death itself. Man is, and forever remains, the beloved and perfect child of God, who ... supplies us constantly with all that we need. So we don't have to suffer for another moment or be overwhelmed for another instant by any sharp trouble that would deprive us of our God given and God-maintained freedom.
Jesus certainly didn't limit God's healing power in any way, and we don't have to either. In fact, he said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."2 So, what is the truth about sickness? That God didn't send it or authorize it; therefore it has no power or validity. As the Bible tells us, "He will not afflict." 3 We can confidently turn to Him for help, because it is God, the Scriptures say, who heals all our diseases, redeems our life from destruction, crowns us with lovingkindness and tender mercies.4
We tend to be intimidated by disease and other evils because of what the Bible calls "the carnal mind," which it says is "enmity against God." 5 Science and Health uses the term animal magnetism to refer to this negative influence: "As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful. This belief has not one quality of Truth." 6
This "false belief," whatever its form, is indeed false. It claims that evil has power and authority over us; but it doesn't, because God is omnipotent, the only power there is, and He is wholly good. An understanding of God's omnipotence enables us to destroy animal magnetism's pointed threats and intimidations, and any physical symptoms related to those threats. We see healing outwardly when the belief in evil and the fear of it are destroyed in thought.
Granted, in some situations it may seem very difficult to disbelieve what the body is telling us. But we can do it. Science and Health counsels: "Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man." 7 Animal magnetism has no power to stop us from thinking and praying correctly, from knowing at all times that we are God's perfect, spiritual expression, entirely good.
God is truly the only source of man's being. And that being, our true selfhood, is forever whole and sound, loved and lovable, upright and intact. It is joyful and perpetually painless, sinless, and free. There's no need, then, to be in awe of any false belief that suggests something different.
The need is to realize more clearly than ever before that God, and God alone, is in complete charge of our lives, that He is our Physician and guide. Believing His Word, trusting His truth and almighty power, we'll find healing in the place of thorns. We can joyfully and peacefully watch them go by the wayside as we see that God has not sanctioned a single one of them. Victory can be ours over every challenge confronting us.
