Life - 1/21/17

​LIFE
January 21, 1917

Golden Text
Rom 8:13 if
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 


Responsive Reading
Gen 22:1,2,4,9,11,12,15-18
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. 

Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 

And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 

And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 

And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: 

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 

And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. 


Section I
( 1)   Gen 12:1,2,5 
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. 

( 2)   Heb 11:8,10 
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 

( 3)   Gal 3:7-9,11 
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 

But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. 

( 4)   James 1:12 
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 


( 1)   579:10-14 
ABRAHAM.  Fidelity; faith in the divine Life and in the eternal Principle of being. 
    This patriarch illustrated the purpose of Love to create trust in good, and showed the life-preserving power of spiritual understanding. 

( 2)   283:1,13-15,21 
As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God. 

    But what say prevalent theories? They insist that Life, or God, is one and the same with material life so-called. 

    This false belief as to what really constitutes life so detracts from God's character and nature, that the true sense of His power is lost to all who cling to this falsity. The divine Principle, or Life, cannot be practically demonstrated in length of days, as it was by the patriarchs, unless its Science be accurately stated. We must receive the divine Principle in the understanding, and live it in daily life; and unless we so do, we can no more demonstrate Science, than we can teach and illustrate geometry by calling a curve a straight line or a straight line a sphere. 

( 3)   324:13 The, 32-7 
The way is straight and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God is the only Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, in which we must conquer sin, sickness, and death, either here or hereafter, - certainly before we can reach the goal of Spirit, or life in God. 

    Jesus said substantially, "He that believeth in me shall not see death." That is, he who perceives the true idea of Life loses his belief in death. He who has the true idea of good loses all sense of evil, and by reason of this is being ushered into the undying realities of Spirit. Such a one abideth in Life, -  life obtained not of the body incapable of supporting life, but of Truth, unfolding its own immortal idea. 


Section II
( 5)   Gen 13:7-9,14,15 
And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. 

And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. 

( 6)   Prov  3:13,17,18 
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. 


( 4)   467:9-13 
It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love.  Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established. 

( 5)   541:16 
    The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelligence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood of man at the very outset. 

( 6)   444:13-19, 22 
    Students are advised by the author to be charitable and kind, not only towards differing forms of religion and medicine, but to those who hold these differing opinions. Let us be faithful in pointing the way through Christ, as we understand it, but let us also be careful always to "judge righteous judgment," and never to condemn rashly. 

If ecclesiastical sects or medical schools turn a deaf ear to the teachings of Christian Science, then part from these opponents as did Abraham when he parted from Lot, and say in thy heart: "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren." Immortals, or God's children in divine Science, are one harmonious family; but mortals, or the "children of men" in material sense, are discordant and ofttimes false brethren. 

( 7)   122:1-7 
    The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, -  assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, - the actual reign of harmony on earth. 


Section III
( 7)   Gen 14:18,19 
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 

( 8)   Heb 7:15,16 
And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. 

( 9)   John 8:51,56-58 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 

(10)   John 17:3 
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 


( 8)   289:32 
Because Life is God, Life must be eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I AM, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase. 

( 9)   410:4-7 
    "This is life eternal," says Jesus, - is, not shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of his Father and of himself, - the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life. 

(10)   487:3-6 
    Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walking in the pathway of Truth both before and after that which is called death. 

(11)   246:4-6,10-12,17-28 
Life and its faculties are not measured by calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal likeness of their Maker. 

    The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. 

    Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness. 
    Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. 


Section IV
(11)   Heb 13:2 
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 

(12)   Gen 18:1,2,9,10 
And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 

And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife?  And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son.  And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. 

(13)   Gen 21:1,3 
And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. 

And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. 

(14)   John 3:6,14,15 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 


(12)   548:12 
Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being. 

(13)   146:20,26 
Science is the "stranger that is within thy gates," remembered not, even when its elevating effects practically prove its divine origin and efficacy. 

This healing power of Truth must have been far anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as "the Ancient of days." It lives through all Life, and extends throughout all space. 

(14)   299:7 
    My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain "angels unawares." 

(15)   574:27-30 
The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. 

(16)   224:22 
    A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this angel visitant, who cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he came of old to the patriarch at noonday? 


Section V
(15)   Gen 20:2,3,7,14,17 
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife. 

Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine. 

And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. 

So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. 

(16)   James 5:15,16 
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.  The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 


(17)   203:7-8 
    If God were understood instead of being merely believed, this understanding would establish health. 

(18)   231:8 
If God heals not the sick, they are not healed, for no lesser power equals the infinite All-power; but God, Truth, Life, Love, does heal the sick through the prayer of the righteous. 

(19)   145:32-9 
Our Master's first article of faith propounded to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost?  Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed. 

(20)   428:30-6 
    The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the only Life. It is a sin to believe that aught can overpower omnipotent and eternal Life, and this Life must be brought to light by the understanding that there is no death, as well as by other graces of Spirit. We must begin, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we begin the better. 

(21)   368:14 
When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error. 


Section VI
(17)   Heb 11:17-19 
By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. 

(18)   John 11:21,25,26 
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? 

(19)   I Cor 15:17,20 
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 


(22)   25:3-6, 13-16 
    The spiritual essence of blood is sacrifice. The efficacy of Jesus' spiritual offering is infinitely greater than can be expressed by our sense of human blood. 

    Jesus taught the way of Life by demonstration, that we may understand how this divine Principle heals the sick, casts out error, and triumphs over death. 

(23)   31:14-17 
It is the living Christ, the practical Truth, which makes Jesus "the resurrection and the life" to all who follow him in deed. 

(24)   292:7-10,31 
    Truth will be to us "the resurrection and the life" only as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the only immortality of man, can be fettered by the body, and Life be controlled by death. 

In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality. 

(25)   508:28 
    The third stage in the order of Christian Science is an important one to the human thought, letting in the light of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent upon no material organization. Our Master reappeared to his students, - to their apprehension he rose from the grave, - on the third day of his ascending thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of eternal Life. 

(26)   296:6 
Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off.  Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real, and eternal.