The call, "Put your armor on"!

In Ephesians 6 in the King James Version of The Holy Bible we find the warning that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness [supreme goodness[;”¹ It goes on describing the armor that one needs to make sure they have always.

But the description of the armor is not material. The description of the battle and the ‘powers’ that we must win over are not material but mental. These ‘principlalities’, ‘powers’, ‘rulers of the darkness’, and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’ are the temptations, fears, concerns, doubts, dreads, opinions, false claims, and false opinions that we must wrestle with not physically but mentally. They are the lies of the devil, the temptations that ruin our lives or at least make our lives uncomfortable after we fall for their claims of pleasure. The intense fears or subtle worries, the works of the devil, try to make us feel hopeless, abandoned, lost.  How do we defend ourselves from these mental principalities and powers, temptations and fears?

We do it when we begin our day in prayer and communication with God, Good, Principle, The Only and One Power, the Creator of the Universe and Man; listening to and being obedient to this Divine Love. When we do this prayerful work every day we are putting on our ‘armor’. We are putting on His Truth as our defense; His Love for our protection; His Mind for our wisdom and understanding; His Spirit for our joy, happiness, and strength; His Soul as our beauty and grace; His Principle for our Law that counteracts all false claims of another law or potentate; His Life for our eternal well-being. This is putting on our whole armor. We are seeing we are at one with God, Good, and His All-knowing, All-seeing Power.

This armor of God puts us in our right frame of mind as witnesses to the Power of God and His glory and victory. This armor protects us during our day, leads us in His way, and defines who and what we are as His perfect image and likeness, His offspring, His child. This armor is for our protection and defense against the wiles of the devil, evil, error, mistaken beliefs and opinions, false personal desires. This armor is really the embrace of Love. The Love that loves and guards us. The Love that watches our every step as a Mother. The Love that protects us, fortifies us, and gives us strength as a Father. This Love loves us because this Love knows us. The Truth concerning this Love arms us every day with the Truth of the what and who we are as Love’s perfect child.

When we take the time every morning and all through the day to put on this armor, adjust it, make sure we are fully under the cover of it, then we see God’s healing, protective, directive hand throughout our day. He leads us in His way. He reveals to us what we are to do, say, know, and express. He sustains us and gives to us all we need. This armor protects us from the lies stating otherwise, making us afraid, tempting us into believing in another life outside of God’s ever-presence. This armor protects us from feeling lost, less than, or uncared for. The time we take to put on our spiritual armor fortifies us, clarifies issues, and embraces us in Love. It is ‘unceasing prayer’ that keeps us armed throughout the day.

“in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,…by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness [supreme goodness] on the right hand and on the left…be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness [supreme goodness] with unrighteousneness? And what communion hath light with darkness?”²

This isn’t persons that we are to be unyoked from. It is the false temptations, fears, and vanities that can never believe in nor express Good. For they do not come from Good, they are the mental pull that pulls us away from who we are as the children of God. The armor of supreme goodness stands forever against the lies and temptations, the counterfeits of Good. They are the works of evil.

“What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death. The unreality of the claim that a mortal is the true image of God is illustrated by the opposite natures of Spirit and matter, Mind and body, for one is intelligence while the other is non-intelligence.”³

Every day therefore we must prove ourselves in this armor of Love. Every day we must take a stand for our God, put on this spiritual armor, and do battle with ourselves and all of the false claims of the errors that come mentally to us to fall prey to. We get to see this armor as important as any piece of clothing. It is for our protection. It is the spiritual embrace of Love. It is a part of our daily defense against the wiles of the devil.

If we see the battle is between the spirit and the flesh, where the victor is on the side of God, Spirit, how foolish it would be not to put on this armor of Love every day.

“A voice from heaven we have heard,

The call to rise from earth;
Put armor on, the sword now gird,
And for the fight go forth.
The foe in ambush claims our prize,
Then heed high heaven's call.
Obey the voice of Truth, arise,
And let not fear enthrall.
 
The cause requires unswerving might:
With God alone agree.
Then have no other aim than right;
End bondage, O be free.
Depart from sin, awake to love:
Your mission is to heal.
Then all of Truth you must approve,
And only know the real.”⁴

Gentle hugs

1 King James Version of The Holy Bible Ephesians 6 vss. 12-14
2 ibid II Corinthians 6
3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 285 lines 7-14
4 Christian Science Hymnal No. 5

Say No!

The smallest most powerful word in the dictionary, to me and many others, is the not the word ‘I’…which brings with it ego, a personal sense of self when it should bring the ever-present power of the only ‘I am”, God. But the most powerful word right now that we all have, and the youngest of our own examples, and uses often, is the word ‘no’.

The word ‘No’, when used properly and often, can stop the subtlest to the most aggressive suggestions that one faces during each day, each hour. Each time we are tempted to do any wrong, the false tempting thoughts that will lead us into the depths of trouble and despair, if we would use the word ‘No’ we are saved.

When we know ‘No’, understand why we must say ‘No’, and use it unsparingly we are saved!

The temptations of anger, fear, doubt, resentment, self-indulgences, hostility, envy, and the myriad other temptations alike, can all be turned from us if we would just say, ‘No’ to ourselves and these thoughts. The aggressive mental suggestions that come to us each day tries to tempt us to fall for, follow, and then become in broiled in, lead us into all sorts of discomforts. They can be stopped in our mental tracks with the simple, powerful, understanding, intelligent use of the word ‘No’.

It is interesting to find that the King James Version of the Holy Bible uses the word ‘No’ one thousand three hundred and sixteen times. How many more times we get to, we must, we have to use this word with ourselves and others…

When we say ‘No’ to the temptations that lead us away from the Good that God bestows upon us and our day. What we are saying, as David in his Psalms states, “I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.”¹

And Job said, “God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God? I will teach you by the hand of God: that which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.”²

"Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears."³  

The personal sense thoughts of ‘I will not’ and the “I want to” must be turned from so that our lives bear witness to all the “I will”, “I can”, “I get to” thoughts that glorify God and His ways and means.

The use of this simple word “No” to all personal opinions, wants, desires, as well as fears, doubts and concerns, bring to us the power to defend ourselves and others from the wrong, by doing and thinking the right. By saying “No” to all the wrong allows us to more fully express the Good that we have and know. It brings us in line with what God is to have us do today, everyday.

We must say ‘No’ so that we may say ‘YES’ to all that God is having us to do instead. The more we use this word ‘No’ against our selfish ways we are keeping ourselves ready and in line with the Divine Will.

Let us then see the powerful use of this word towards all temptations that try to bring us down from the highest and holiest of thoughts that would save and regenerate us. Let us see all the thoughts that are useless disappear by our standing firm with the Truth and Love of God. Let us say often ‘No’ to ourselves and be free from the misleading thoughts that would bring us more burdens. Let us rejoice that we have the power to say ‘No’. When the Tempter tries to tempt let us simply, firmly, understandingly say “NO!”

“I love Thy way of freedom, Lord,
To serve Thee is my choice,
In Thy clear light of Truth I rise
And, listening for Thy voice,
I hear Thy promise old and new,
That bids all fear to cease:
My presence still shall go with thee
And I will give thee peace”.⁴

Gentle hugs

1 King James Version of The Holy Bible Psalms 119 vs.16
2 ibid Job 27 vss. 5-11
3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 392 lines 24-30 (Stand)
4 Christian Science Hymnal No. 136 vs. 1

Teach me!!!

 This morning in reading a poem by Louise Knight Wheatly called, “Teach me to love”¹, I began to pray those same words. But it grew from there. It was more than ‘teach me to love’. But also, ‘teach me how to pray, to think, to serve, to give, to share, to forgive’! TEACH ME! 

A prayer of frustration, perhaps, but one from a meek heart, a yearn to see things from a higher perspective, the standpoint of Love.

In looking up the word ‘meek’ in several dictionaries I found the definition I had been looking for for years. It was ‘teachable, the ability to be taught’.

In times of need, how we long for better ways. When things are not working out, how we wish for better thoughts, activities, expressions of love. When we see how lacking our own personal views are, how we treasure those times of spiritual growth. It all comes from the meekness, the teachable attitude, the waiting to learn a higher expression of life as God reveals His Life to us.

Through that desire, that meekness, those moments of deep desire, when we finally get tired of trying to do things from our own lacking personal beliefs, we turn to the highest source, God, Mind, divine Life itself for all the answers.

At times in life we are brought down to our knees both figuratively and literally. But these moments of childlike cries of need we are brought up higher. Higher not in our own selfish view of a ‘me’ or ‘I’, but of God’s highest view of His perfect creation, Man.

The sincere cry, “Teach me” has been prayed throughout the ages. We read David’s plea throughout his Psalms, “Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.”² “Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.”³ “Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.”⁴ Just to share a few of his many “teach me” prayers.

Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians states, “Pray without ceasing.”⁵ Our constant thoughts of ‘ceaseless prayer’ can and should include, ‘Teach me, O Lord’. But it can also be the acknowledging, the affirmation, ‘You do teach me, O Lord, Your perfect ways. You do lead me by Your still thoughts about me and all. You show forth Your constant Love. You are my God, in You I do forever trust.’

Mary Baker Eddy states, “In order to pray aright, we must enter into the closet and shut the door. We must close the lips and silence the material senses. In the quiet                  sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God's allness. We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love. We must "pray without ceasing." Such prayer is answered, in so far as we put our desires into practice.
       The Master's injunction is, that we pray in secret and let our lives attest our sincerity.”⁶

God knows all, does all, expresses all Good through man. Let us turn to Him for all things. Let us let Him teach us today what He is and what we reflect of Him. Let us meekly turn to Him ready to be taught His Love, His ways, His strength and ability. Let us let these teachable moments lift us above all to the highest views of God.

I need Thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford.

Refrain
I need Thee, O, I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
O bless me now, my Saviour,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour;
Stay Thou near by;
Temptations lose their power
When Thou art nigh.
Refrain

I need Thee every hour;
Teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promise, Lord,
In me fulfill.
Refrain⁷

Gentle hugs

1 Poem entitled “Teach me to Love” written for the Christian Science Journal and published in 1908
2-4 The King James Version of They Holy Bible Psalms 25 vs. 4; 86 vs. 11; 119 vs. 33
5 ibid I Thessalonians 5 vs. 17
6 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy pg. 15 lines 14-24
7 Christian Science Hymnal No. 137

A must 'Read'; A Promise, A Law, A Gift ...God is Love

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.  God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.”¹

What a beautiful relationship, God to Love. It is as mathematical as any of the perfect provable theorems of the Science of Mathematics. As we understand Love as God, we can see all that God does and gives. It is through the Mind of Love.

If we clearly see and understand this…or it should be said, AS we clearly see and understand this, we will stop blaming bad on God. We will stop fearing bad and be perfected in Love. We will see that Love removes the bad. Love comes to protect, heal, and lift us above what we consider bad.

Bad is subjective. In that what we believe as bad, the loss of something/someone, or the violence of person or wars, or the destructions of people or weather, isn’t what God sees or creates through Love. Love lifts us gently above the sorrows and reveals Life, His Life, as perfect, sustained, maintained, Real. Love reveals to us through higher thoughts and concepts that what we treasure, count as ‘real’, are but the illusions of an evil world and evil doers.

“This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never reaches beyond the boundary of mortal or the unreal.”² 298:17

When we stop letting the errors of our beliefs swing us like pendulums in a clock from bad to worse, from fear to hopelessness. When we stand firm on the side of God, the side of Good, we will see this Good as the power, dominion, love, joy and peace of our lives now, not a hoped for later.

Love loves, therefore what He creates is all loving. What error, the devil, aggressive mental suggestions creates is chaos, hate, and harm. But Love never created evil and Love is the only Creator. Therefore evil, devil, animality and hate are but the mental suggestions that we place upon ourselves. When we turn to Love in our own dismay we find that all that is unlike Love is  removed by Love. Love reveals to us His Life in the Kingdom of Heaven and our place in His divine consciousness. We dwell in Love.

“In order to comprehend the meaning of the text, let us see what it is to believe.”³ “You will find yourself losing the knowledge and the operation of sin, proportionably as you realize the divine infinitude and believe that He can see nothing outside of His own focal distance.”⁴

We are as little children in the world of make-believe. ‘We believe what we see and see what we believe.’ But this isn’t what God created, manifests, sees, understand, nor sustains in His vastness Goodness and Love, His Truth. When we get horrified by our own beliefs and tired of fear and its false tyranny we turn to Him… or we blame Him…

God is ever available Love. Ever waiting patiently for us all to turn to Him and be healed of our misconceptions. God is the Truth. This Truth removes all that is unlike the Truth. This Truth is the power that frees us from the aggressive mental suggestions. This Truth is the Divine Law and it removes all the false mortal beliefs of false proclaimed laws that we believe are true.

God is above our beliefs. God lifts our understanding to the Truth and reveals man as free, healthy, protected, loved. God is omnipotent, the only and All-powerful. God is omnipresent, the One and Only that fills all-space. These divine Facts remove the beliefs of other powers and evils that falsely abuse and accuse man. Love fills all space. When this is seen and understood mankind finds the divine revelation—that there is no evil—the conceivable and evident Truth of Divine Being. When we turn to the Real, the unreal—evil, fear, doubts, murderous, disastrous tendencies—disappear.  

But not until we stop believing in the unreal will we see the totality of Divine Reality. We must proclaim the Real in our thoughts and stay in His omnipresent Good consistently, persistently, completely.

“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”⁵

Let us stand for Love, live through His Christ in our daily affairs, cast off the false fears that try to hide His omnipotence and be free.  Let us see Love as a power, dominant over all evil beliefs and fears.

“If you ask a Christian Scientist how they do it, the reply will be in the form of a quotation from Science and Health [p. 494], “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.”⁶

It is that we turn to Love, Divine Love, that always has and always will meet every human need, rising His mankind above the evils of misconception and lifts us in His Divine arms, in the view of His ever-powerfulness and ever-present Love.

Gentle hugs


1 The King James Version of The Holy Bible I John 4 vss. 16-19
2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 298 line 17
3 Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy page 197 line 13
4 Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy page 20 line 21
5 The King James Version of The Holy Bible I John 4:9
6 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany compiled and/or written by Mary Baker Eddy page 73 line 7

Already Created Good

Is there anything actually ‘new’? or are ‘new’ things just discovered? Dis-covered, found, realized, seen, understood?

In Genesis chapter 1 and the first three verses of Genesis chapter 2 God created all in the seven days of creation. To most the number seven represents completeness, finished, whole, all that is needed. When one looks to these verses one can see a complete creation of man, animals, water, light and universe, the Allness of All. This creation in its wholeness was pronounced as ‘very good’.

When we see life in this divinely scientific way we can see that nothing in it that was created was evil, less than good. Therefore where does evil and its representation come from? It doesn’t when one sees and realizes that “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”¹

Everything that was made was made by God and it was very good. The Good of God’s creating didn’t include evil of any sort.

When we magnify Good as the All of All everything else becomes less and less to the point of diminishing and disappearing back into nothing. Good is All-in-all. Bad, evil, the opposite of Good therefore has to be the unreal of the Divine Real.

When we magnify Good as the All-in-all, the Divine Real becomes more and more real to us. The wrong, error, bad, the opposite of the Real, evil then becomes a mistaken belief. In this magnification of Good, evil, the unreal disappears.

God, Good, already created all and all was proclaimed ‘very good’, therefore as we magnify the Good, the Real in our thoughts, Good becomes more real to us in our day to day lives than the mistaken beliefs of bad or evil.

What would be the benefit in that? A life more representative of the Real, the Good of God becoming more real to us! Our lives would be based more upon the truth of Being as created by the all wonderful good God. The evils, errors, misrepresentations would therefore diminish, lessen, disappear. Our lives then would be more in accord to the Real than the unreal. Our lives would become more fully the representation of Good, God. This is the true blessing of Love, God. That He created all Good for Man and the Universe to live and enjoy. What could be bad about that? Nothing!

Magnify Love’s work, all the Good of God’s creation. Live Life, God, as His witness to His Good and rejoice. STOP magnifying the unreal, the bad of everything and start living a life of Good!

Gentle hug

 
1 The King James Version of the Holy Bible Genesis 1 vs. 31

Depressed, sad, fearful? Get inspired

Feeling sluggish, down, depressed, sad, grieving over something or someone? Are you concerned, worried, confused? Get inspired. Inspiration lifts our thoughts, lives, and work.

Many who are in the depths of despair do not know how to get out of the darkness. But if they would let in the light of inspiration…just a little light and then more and more…they would find there is a way out of depression, grief, even addictions caused by the thoughts of utter hopelessness.

How? By turning to the Light of God, the Light of Love, the joy of divine Life. How? By turning to God’s Word found in The Holy Bible, even if at first it is hard to understand it lifts thought. The activity of lifting thought to higher views, Divine views, lets in the Light that removes the darkness off of us. By reading, thinking, letting the words become clearer in our understanding, we gain dominion over the darkness.

The darkened thought seems self-perpetuating. But as darkness is removed instantly with light, thought enlightened removes the doubts, fears, and depressions. Even the smallest of light of a candle when lit transforms that area with light. When more candles are lit sight begins to become easier. Sight is a form of understanding. When we see something more clearly then understanding is becoming more evident.

Revelations, through reading the Word of God, brings our understanding from the lowest standpoint to high inspirations. This brings in the light into thought and lifts us above the dismal and dark to a better understanding and therefore more joy and happiness.

In Job, the 18th book of The Holy Bible in the Old Testament, we find, “…there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”¹

And in II Thessalonians we read, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”²

Mary Baker Eddy, the discover and founder of Christian Science states in her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God's creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse our feeble flutterings — our efforts to find life and truth in matter — and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.

              Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear:  but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echo Job's thought, when the supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate. They will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God.  Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."³

When we ‘dive into the shallows of mortal belief’ we are listening to, agreeing with, and acknowledging as fact the thoughts of darkness. This brings us nothing good and only pain, sorrow, and destruction through the addictions of either only listening to the darkened thought and or following the effects of those thoughts further into our personal demise of joy, happiness, and maybe of our life.

Depression is a poison. It leads life into fatal destructive thoughts and patterns. It leads no one into the light of Love as the Life, God, Good, does.

One of the best meanings of ‘depression’ is lack of spirit. It is a lack of understanding Spirit, God. When we start seeing and turning to God as Spirit, we, as God’s image and likeness, find we already have this perfect Spirit. We find that when we acknowledge Spirit as a part of us, we begin to manifest more of our spirit in the spirit of joy, the spirit of love, the spirit of happiness, the spirit of fortitude and goodness. When the temptations of dark thoughts come to us what we most need is to turn away from those patterns and thoughts by turning to God.

Spirit saves us from the symptoms of depression and their effects; such as, the use of drugs, alcohol, ‘shopping therapy’, gambling, or eating. To treat the dark thoughts of depression, what we need is not these mind numbing activities but more Spirit, God.

How? Through prayer. Praying is a conversation between God and Man, from God to Man. It is turning to God for the right thoughts of His perfect design and creation instead of the dark thoughts of dismal outlook. Praying inspires us with higher views. Praying consoles us, lifts our thoughts, makes us see things differently. Praying brings new channels of thoughts and therefore activities into our lives.

“Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
And prayer's sublimest strain doth reach
The Majesty on high.
 
Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air:
His watchword, overcoming death:
He enters heaven with prayer.”⁴

“He enters heaven with prayer.” When we pray and listen for the Voice of Good, the voice of God, it lifts us above all darkness into the light, the light of heaven! 

It is highly important then when we see the distance between darkness and light to go towards the lifting, inspiring effects of the Light and Life of God. It is worthy of our thoughts and time to exercise our dominion over the darkness of dismal thinking. It is for ours and others well being and happiness to glorify God and His wonderful activities. We can see how lifting our spirits above the darkening thoughts through prayer can utterly change our life.

“God giveth light to all

Who ask with prayer sincere;
He doth not fail to hear that call;
His Truth is ever near.
 
Plain shall His guidance be,
If thou but seek the right;
Clearly thy pathway thou shalt see,
A line of purest light.

God is thy light and health;
No death nor darkness there;
Turn but to Him, accept His wealth,
And all His glory share.”⁵

Gentle hug

1 The King James Version of The Holy Bible Job 32 vs. 8

2 ibid II Thessalonians 3 vss. 16, 17
3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures page 262 lines 14-26
4 Christian Science Hymnal No. 284 vss. 2, 3
5 ibid No. 70

Glorify God...no self-pity here

Are we glorifying God if we are feeling sorry for ourselves?

What would happen if God felt sorry for Himself? Started thinking of all the times man has turned its back on Him and all His glorious nature? Feeling hurt, resentful, pained by the actions of man in this sphere of thought? What would happen then if God was that type of god and turned His back on us? That is how it feels sometimes. But can God really turn His ‘back’ on His own image and likeness, man? Would that be possible? It feels that way at times?

No! It is untrue and actually impossible, for Mind, God, fills all space with His Love, Wisdom, Perfect Divine Selfhood. God created man, His perfect idea, to be His very ‘image and likeness’¹. Man cannot really turn his back on God and God cannot turn His ‘back’ to Man. It is only a man-made suggestion. It is not an actual possibility.

God sees the Real Man has happy beloved, joyful, kind, the image of Himself. Self-pity sees the dream, the unreal, the ego and vanity of hurt feelings. God expresses the Real through His offspring, Man. Mortal man sees through the eyes of self-glorification. He is rebuffed if he isn’t glorified in other’s thoughts and actions towards himself. Mortal man is a demi-god of the devil and has no true creation, existence, or power. Divine Man, the image of God, created to glorify and magnify God, imaging forth all of God’s nature, character and divinity, sees only what God is doing and manifesting.

God is to be the only One glorified, praised, loved. This love is the love of Love and it is all-inclusive. The vanities are self-absorbed, self-centered love that darkens the thoughts of the mortal and its self-aggrandizement. God is the One and Only Good. Man, the image of God is the witness to this Divine Glory.

The importance of this thought is brought out in three of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. They all write of Christ Jesus when “one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” and Jesus said, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”²

It is highly important for us to emulate the Christ example. To awake to the realization of God and His perfect idea, Man. It is recommended that we follow as closely to the Christ example in our daily lives and as quickly as possible. If we fall for the opposite of the Christ example we are letting the anti-christ use us and therefore abuse us into doing wrong. The right at every point is to see and understand the example of the Christ and to follow it. This Christ is in us all and must be glorified in all of our actions and thoughts.

Instead of crying all the day long, “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.”³

We must see where true comfort lies. The Comforter and comfort comes from the knowledge that God created man already loved, already perfect, ready to be of His service, His witness to His Allness and Good, not self.

Selfhood is divine. It is not a mortal, personal sense of self. Selfhood is what God is doing and manifesting. Selfhood is pure of the personal senses. It is the reflection of God’s perfect Divine Will. How important it is then for willfulness, sadness, hurt feelings to be turned from immediately and the glorification be always to and for God, Love.

How? Mary Baker Eddy, the discover and founder of Christian Science instructs, “Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God’s gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successful done for the Christianization and health of mankind.”⁴  

‘Self-immolation’ isn’t self abuse. It is a turning away from a false sense of self to see what mankind is, the reflection, the image and likeness of God. It is a turning away from a personal sense of self and its false sense of self-glorification and a turning to God’s gracious expression manifested in Man.

Mrs. Eddy also shares, “Self-forgetfulness, purity, and affection are constant prayers.”⁵ AND “St. Paul wrote, ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,’ that is, let us put aside material self and sense, and seek the divine Principle and Science of all healing.”⁶

If the sting of self-pity, hurt feelings, the ‘poor me, they hurt me’ tries to set in, Let us turn from these anti-chirst like views and turn to glorify the only perfect One, God. He it is that is to be glorified at all times. Let us turn away from sense and self to Soul, God, and magnify Him in all our ways, views, thoughts and activities. Let us remember that only God is to be praised and not we ourselves. Vanity, ego, self-centered thoughts must be put down, removed from our thinking. The magnification of God and all of His Good is to be glorified.

Let us pray, “To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.  Amen.”⁷

Gentle hugs


1 The King James Version of The Holy Bible Genesis 1 vs. 26
2 ibid Matthew 19 vs. 17

3 ibid Psalms 69 vs. 20

4 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 1 line 6

5 ibid page 15 line 26

6 ibid page 20 line 30

7 The King James Version of the Holy Bible Jude 1 vs. 25  

Grief of loss OR the letting go of grief?

Grief comes in many forms. Not only in the loss of a loved one due to death. But many other challenges of loss, such as, the loss of a home, a job, a business, children through moving away, friends leaving, misunderstandings that strain relationships, the loss of possessions, and even the loss of a sense of youth.

Grief is an aggressive mental suggestion. It hits us hard at times. Many times it comes out of the blue. Shock, sorrow, disbelief, melancholy seems to add to the sense of grief. The length of time we deal with grief is determined by how long we hold onto the feelings of loss. It can seem to come and pass quickly or linger for years.

But if we saw grief as an aggressive mental suggestion such as fear, doubt, worry. If we see grief as actually a burden upon our thoughts and lives, a mental suggestion we do not have to agree to, we can become free from the depths of grief. In actuality we can deny it as a part of our experience.  We can claim our dominion over grief when we realize that it is a temptation, not a gift from God.

In Psalms we read, “How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.”¹

The freedom from grief is a relief. The realization that God gives to man all Good lifts us above all the burdens that the tempter brings to our thoughts. This includes grief. We can say “No” to all sadness, burdens, fears, doubts, concerns through the understanding of What God is and what God gives. If we saw that everything is from God, through Good, and is manifested by Man, Man would be free from anything unlike God’s nature and qualities of Good.

“This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.”²

No loss, no pain, no sorrow when we claim all Good as the Being of our lives. Spiritual Being, Love, the supreme and only Mind, Divine Life, is the Truth of our experience. When we claim the Perfection and completeness of our lives as God’s children it lifts us above all the other claims of evil, sorrow, loss.

“Love is true solace and giveth joy for sorrow, —
O, in that light, all earthly loss is gain;
Joy must endure, Love's giving is forever;
Life is of God, whose radiance cannot wane.”³

This life brings burdens, sorrows and fears. But the more we learn about God as Love, trust His ever-present Good, knowing how He tenderly cares for all, we can rise more quickly over those aggressive feelings. We can rise above grief and sadness. We can feel His heavenly touch and regain our joy, the gift of God.

Gentle hugs


1The King James Version of the Holy Bible Psalms 13: 2, 5, 6
2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 304 line 12
3 The Christian Science Hymnal No. 174 vs. 2

God gave us dominion!

In life’s crisis sometimes we feel less than strong, far from feeling dominion, burdened, enslaved by the fears and concerns. But God gave man dominion over all things. He put everything under man’s feet (power) so that Man is the free born not the enslaved by matter, by cares, by fears.

It is said in the very first book, the very first chapter of the Holy Bible in Genesis, “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl in the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”¹

Dominion is the “Sovereign or supreme authority; the power of governing and controlling. Power to direct, control, use and dispose of at pleasure; right of possession and use…Territory under a government; …right of governing…” Man has been given dominion not enslavement! Man has been given ‘sovereign or supreme authority’. Are we acting like we have dominion? Or are we bowing down to all the hardships this life is throwing at us?

David questions and marvels in his Psalms, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:”²

We have been given dominion. To practice dominion is to learn how to say, “NO” to all falsehoods. To those things that are not like God, the lies, fears, temptations, doubts, concerns, based upon the serpentine suggestions of all errors concerning the truth about God and Man. These falsehoods can and must be removed from our thoughts and lives. God is good, perfect, All. Man is His perfect image and likeness. He cannot be anything less than God’s perfection as His image and likeness. Therefore the false conclusions, the aggressive demonic suggestions, the lies put upon man must and can be removed. Man is Godlike. When he knows what he is as ***God’s offspring, all that God is is manifested through Man, God’s image. Man has the dominion to stop following lies and instead see himself as reflecting all that God has made him to be, perfect, whole, and free.

Let us today start thinking of ourselves as God’s image and likeness. Let us see how those thoughts help us gain dominion over the enslaving beliefs of fear, doubt, concerns and sickness. Because God cannot fear, be in doubt of His Perfection, concerned about the future or any lack, nor can God be sick or die, in actuality neither can His perfect image and likeness, Man. Let us regain our dominion through His Truth, Life and Love. Let us start taking back our lives through the simple but strong statement, “NO” and the why, because we are God’s offspring.

Gentle Hugs

1 The King James Version of The Holy Bible Genesis 1: 26-28
2 ibid Psalms 8 vss. 4-6

Crying or Singing to God?

Have you ever seen a small child upset but when distracted with a toy, cookie, or even a voice on the TV they stop crying?  After a little happy distraction they may have even forgotten what they were upset about?

Years ago I was told, “You cannot sing and cry at the same time.” I’ve tried to prove this statement wrong on several occasions. But have found time after time its truth. When things get tough, if we feel like crying, losing it, or giving up, how about singing instead?  If we sing praises, hymns, prayers, or even rants against the devilish temptations of despair, our songs can bring us up above the storms and into clear thoughts and better days.

After many years I have gained several songs I like to turn to in trying moments. I cannot sing on tune for the most part. But that doesn’t stop me from singing hymns in my head or belting them out when I’m alone (who am I going to scare?).

Sadly this is a blog spot without audio. But here are some verses from hymns I turn to for a sense of calm and peace.
“O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind
There sweeps a strain,
Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind
The power of pain,

And wake a white-winged angel throng
Of thoughts, illumed
By faith, and breathed in raptured song,
With love perfumed.

Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show
Life's burdens light.
I kiss the cross, and wake to know
A world more bright.

And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea
I see Christ walk,
And come to me, and tenderly,
Divinely talk.

Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,
Upon Life's shore,
'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,
Oh, nevermore!

From tired joy and grief afar,
And nearer Thee, —
Father, where Thine own children are,
I love to be.

My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me.”¹

This hymn is actually a poem by Mary Baker Eddy called “Christ my Refuge”. There are several other songs I turn to for reassurance. But I’ll share just one more…it also is a poem by Mrs. Eddy called “Satisfied”.  It reads,

“It matters not what be thy lot,
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine, pure peace is thine,
Whate'er betide.

And of these stones, or tyrants' thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed — in thought and deed —
To faithful His.

Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence!
Our God is good.
False fears are foes — truth tatters those,
When understood.

Love looseth thee, and lifteth me,
Ayont hate's thrall:
There Life is light, and wisdom might,
And God is All.

The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God's glorified!
Who doth His will — His likeness still —
Is satisfied.”²

Music can help us lift our thoughts to Spirit, Love. By turning to God, listening for His hymn of hymns, the Truth about who and what we are, we can quickly regain our freedom. Music is used as lullabies, background, celebrations, and prayers. We can use these ‘heavenly strains’ to help us turn our thoughts back to Him. We can use these to regain our composure and receive directions and solutions to any problem. 

It is said, ‘whistle while you work’. Let us whistle a happy tune throughout our day.  It just may be the turning point to our healing.

Gentle hug

1 Christian Science Hymnal Nos. 253-257
2 ibid Nos. 160-162