God is always present. That’s a comforting revelation from the Bible. Understanding this—seeing God as infinite, omnipresent Spirit—dispels the view of a patriarch who dwells in the sky dispensing wisdom from a distance.
While this truth is reassuring, it can sometimes seem elusive. But it really isn’t. Christ Jesus fulfilled Hebrew prophecy (see Isaiah 7:14), bringing to light the immanent sense of “God with us” known as Immanuel.
The Savior’s words show that he was continuously aware of his unity with his divine Parent: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus’ certainty of this oneness enabled him to feed multitudes, walk on the water, redeem sin, and heal every type of illness and disability.
Christian Science explains that “God with us” is the only reality there is. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures presents it this way: “. . . Christ illustrates the coincidence, or spiritual agreement, between God and man in His image” (Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 332–333). Christ’s coming reveals God’s love for man—you and me and everyone—to be practical reality.
We can understand and demonstrate the “spiritual agreement” between God and man in our daily life just as the master Christian did. In fact, Science and Health assures us that an understanding of this unity with God brings healing today: “Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or ‘God with us,’—a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the
captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the
blind,
To set at liberty them that are
bruised” (p. xi).
God’s presence is infinite. It is perpetually expressing itself in each of us as God’s ideas. “God with us” does not fluctuate or disappear. Even when the divine presence seems hidden by clouds of mortal history or mental darkness, this misperception can’t truly obscure it. Immanuel never stops shining in individual consciousness.
How do we gain an understanding of “God with us” and spiritual confidence? Christian Science gives us the answer: cultivate spiritual sense.
Spiritual sense is defined as “a conscious, constant capacity to understand God” (Science and Health, p. 209). This faculty is the opposite of mortal sense. It takes no cognizance of what the material senses see, hear, or feel. It has nothing to do with brain or material reasoning. Its sole source is divine Mind, God—our only true Mind. It is always conscious, and conscious only of goodness, health, joy, right activity. And because it is God-endowed, spiritual sense is the only real sense. To utilize this sense is to reject every material concept, whatever its claims.
God-inspired thought is peaceful, reasonable, evenhanded, pure, and uninterruptible. The book of James offers this description: “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (3:17).
Once I realized that God is with me at all times and in all circumstances, I started acknowledging this fact. Beginning my mornings by declaring that I am in God’s presence right now, I saw more and more clearly that I am in the presence of goodness, harmony, and health each moment. God’s nature excludes inharmony, contagion, fear, disease, anger, frustration, and indifference. Right now only good—divine reality—is going on.
“God with us” is the only reality there is.
One night a couple of years ago I experienced debilitating pain, something that had been a regular occurrence over time. Unable to sleep, I got up and walked around my home, refusing to believe that pain could exist in God’s presence. At one point I looked out a window and saw two small deer feeding on my evergreens. As I watched their peaceful beauty I was pain-free. But when they left, the pain returned. This was unmistakable evidence to me that the pain had no actuality or truth. If it were real, it could not have disappeared while I enjoyed observing God’s creatures.
Over the next two days I persisted in recognizing God’s ever-presence and all-power. As Immanuel became more real and tangible to me, the pain disappeared completely. That debilitating condition has never returned.
The good news of Immanuel is true: God is with us, right here and now.
The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is
mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee
with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy
over thee with singing.
