Healing Our Concept of Man

In the definition of Adam in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the author states in part that Adam is a “material belief”.

What is the material belief here? The belief that man (used here as defining all mankind) has ever been separated from God; that man has ever been anything but God’s spiritual, perfect creation, His image and likeness.

So often it is these two concepts that need healing – our concept of who or what God is and what man is.

I’ve helped to see through a couple healings recently by using the definition of man on page 475 of the book previously mentioned. This definition starts out by saying what man is not and proceeds to say what is. The definition proceeds in this denial and affirming method.

We must realize that there never has been an imperfect man. Therefore we can not accept any lie that is whispered into our thought by error or the carnal mind as the Bible calls it about our imperfection, inability, or limitation. We can see ourselves and know ourselves only as God sees and knows us since He created us.

And then we take it another step and see and know everyone around us as that perfect man. My teacher once told me that if we are seeing or accepting something imperfect about someone else we are automatically accepted it for ourselves. Because that person is God’s creation just as we are.

Further in this definition of man it is stated:

Jesus beheld in Science the per‐
fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal
man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour
saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man
healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom
of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself
spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect
nor material.

So therefore we have to look up and see that perfect man all around us everywhere and that automatically frees us right up from any limitation. We can’t see ourselves or others in anyway than what God sees us and we don’t have to accept any suggestions coming to us either mentally, verbally, subtly, or aggressively that we are anything but God’s perfect reflection, forever one with God and forever like God.

This can be challenging at times but it is cause for great spiritual growth by which comes our freedom from challenge or limitation.

As a side note, great freedom has also come from reading that definition from the feminine perspective and substituting the word woman for man. Healing has resulted from this true, spiritual, and perfect view of woman.

What is a Christian Science Practitioner?

A Christian Science Practitioner has a variety of ways they can support someone. You can call a practitioner about anything! There is always a spiritual approach to problems or ways of thinking that can help us find peace, healing and restoration.

Christian Science Practitioners are always available and always happy and willing to talk to you and tell you more about your unbroken relationship with God – even if you have never known God before or been unsure.

Christian Science refers to God as Life, Truth, Love, Principle, Mind, Soul and Spirit. These are universal terms for God that are usable and acceptable by everyone regardless of religious and previous background.

God is Life itself – our life, your life, my life, which is indestructible and eternal and incapable of discord and decay. God and His or It’s laws are the Truth; God and what She created is the Truth. God is Love itself, the only source of love and cause of love and is unconditional, not judgmental or punishing. God is Principle, the law, and the foundation of the universe, unchanging and scientific. God is Mind, the one and only Mind, always thinking, knowing, seeing, and guiding all ideas. God is Soul, the one and only Soul, which is the source of our identity and individuality as well as our spiritual sense. And God is Spirit, totally spiritual, pure, holy, perfect, everywhere, indestructible and totally unlimited.

See? God in this way is tangible and understandable to everyone. And this information is found in the Bible and in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. These books can be used to search, understand, and explore your relationship with God more on your own. And you can call a Christian Science Practitioner to pray with you and for you and to give you fresh ideas and insight for your situation.

For more information on Christian Science Practitioners you can visit here.

How do we overcome fear in our lives?

In the chapter I’m reading entitled Christian Science Practice in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, it states that divine Love heals the sick instantaneously.

From my experience I know that nothing feels better than God’s love. And through the understanding of God’s love and in feeling God’s love, all fear is wiped out.

I had an experience like this yesterday when I was having an intense back pain. It was prohibiting me from moving and even from lying down. After a short nap, I woke up but wasn’t feeling much relief. I then began declaring that I am not afraid. There seemed to be a fear of future issues or hypothetical problems (it’s kind of funny to be afraid of problems that don’t even exist yet). But as I started with the simple fact that I am not afraid, the fear began disappearing and I was able to get up and move around.

In fact our natural state of being is to be unafraid. If you’ve felt it before, it is an amazing feeling; you feel completely clear and you know that nothing can stop you or convince of not doing the right thing. I do hope we all get the opportunities on a day-to-day basis of feeling unafraid.

I watched the movie “Inside Man” last night, and it became clear to me that fear was keeping people from seeing what was going on. Fake guns were used in the bank robbery and no one was actually in any danger. If everyone knew that, they could have all waited peacefully for the resolution of the issue at hand and probably seen the solution to the problem more clearly (mainly that the bank robber was simply trying to get back at the owner of the band for past war crimes). The solution was entirely above and beyond what people were able to see, because a mortal sense of things, mainly fear, was blocking their true perception of motive and character.

Such is the same in a case of sickness and disease. And fear is always what needs to be handled first. God’s creation is fearless, so fearlessness is actually our natural state. When we see and know that God is the true substance of our being, that we are and all of God’s creation is actually purely spiritual and intact, and that life is eternal because God is the only Life, than we know we can be afraid.

Mary Baker Eddy, a spiritual healer, teacher, and religious leader states that when fear is gone, the disease vanishes into its native nothingness.

So let’s all try and overcome fear together. And I find we can do this through expresses God’s love to one another. In her spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, Mrs. Eddy states “Love is reflected in love”. So we can all reflect God’s love and live a completely fearless life together. The Bible also gives us authority that “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.”