Omnipotence encounters no opposition. In divine Mind there is no struggle for supremacy. This is a portentous thought, and more important still it is a demonstrable fact now revealed in Christian Science. To all-inclusive Truth there is no error with which to cope. Soul is sinless, and in spiritual consciousness there is no unreality called evil with which to wrestle. Mortal mind has no entity or identity, no place or power in the divine economy.
Therefore for man, the reflection of omnipresent Spirit, there is no struggle. Being wholly spiritual, man has no contest with materiality. Because God is his Life, man is immortal; he never was and never can be involved in any fight for survival or existence. God's man continually reflects Love, expresses Life, understands Truth; and he does this spontaneously, naturally, constantly, without toilsome striving. Does not the sunlight without effort express the sun's warmth and brilliance? Even so spiritual man, Mind's perfect idea, constantly manifests Mind in effortless divine energy. Christian Science reveals these grand verities.
Struggle, then, relates solely to the supposititious realm of mortal consciousness. It will continue in human experience until the false sense of a material selfhood apart from God yields completely to the truth of man's eternal, incorporeal existence as the representation of infinite Mind. The spiritual facts of being which Christian Science reveals run counter to human opinion and material sense testimony. The world's opposition to Truth must be overcome in our own consciousness; hence the necessity today of striving for self-surrender to God, which enables us to follow Christ Jesus in the way.
Since Christian Science teaches that mortal-mindedness is unreal, one may well ask himself, Is it possible to struggle with unreality or an illusion? Pertinent query this! And the answer? The dreamer profits not by wrestling with a dream but by awakening from it. Light does not fight darkness; it simply shines, and through the brightness of its irradiant appearing causes darkness to disappear. Mortals who walk in the darkness of materiality and would escape its encircling gloom must first see the light of Truth, and the means whereby spiritual understanding may be obtained. Then they can bring this light to bear upon their problem.
The student of Christian Science does not struggle against error—ignorance, sin, disease—as a reality. Discerning the light of Truth in the Bible and in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, he strives consistently to maintain the light of spiritual understanding which he gains from the study of these books. He also labors to let this light shine, to express in his daily living the divine Love he sees to be omnipotent, the perfect Mind he knows to be All-in-all. He knows that the perception of Truth and the living of it are evidences of the Christ in his human experience.
This Christ-light strengthens the Christian Science practitioner and reveals his spiritual at-one-ment with divine Love and its healing power. An uninspired mortal may, through human will, struggle perhaps in vain against adversity, disease, sin. This is not the way of the Christian Scientist, who proves the absence of ignorance, dullness, inertia by reflecting the faculties of perfect Mind. Through the expression of God's qualities he increasingly deprives animality, hate, fear, of any place or power in his thought and life. In his realization of God's omnipotence he attains God-given dominion.
The study and practice of Christian Science enables us to overcome error by the effectual use of the Christ-power. As we continue to avail ourselves of this power, we may be sure of the result: error will recede from consciousness. Then the struggle is forgotten in the joy of overcoming and the gain of spiritual poise and healing. As Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 426), "The struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one;" hence the significance of Paul's stirring appeal to Timothy (I Tim. 6:12), "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses."
Let us not be discouraged if at times the struggle seems uphill. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Holding to this verity in the face of what appears to be overwhelming sense testimony to the contrary, we shall conquer.
The Scriptures inform us that "Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. ... And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved" (Gen. 32:24, 30). Speaking of Jacob's contest with materiality, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 309): "The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit and of spiritual power. This changed the man. He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel,—a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought a good fight."
Jacob "had conquered material error," but only through earnest striving for the true idea of God which lifted his thought above the sordidness of self. We shall also experience the joy of overcoming as we strive to equal Jacob's demonstration. This, Christian Science enables us to do. For this Science reveals God as He is. Wherever the true understanding of God appears, there will be a deeper appreciation of the Science which reveals Him, and greater obedience to its constituted authority, the Manual of The Mother Church, broader views of humanity's problems and the spiritual ideas and healing power with which they will be solved. This bright appearing is sufficient evidence that in our battle with error Truth is winning.
The human element in Christ Jesus struggled with the divine in the wilderness, at Gethsemane, before Pilate, and on Calvary. Prayerfully and unceasingly he put forth the effort not to let the material belief but the spiritual idea of God, the Christ, be always represented in him And the glorious result? Not only was he thereby endowed from on high with all-conquering healing power, but mighty blessings for mankind were wrought by him. Here then is the essential inspiration for our own endeavors. May we, like the great Exemplar, struggle for reality as he did, and share as he shared with humanity the joy and triumph of Truth's overcoming. Christian Science makes victory not only possible, but inevitable.
