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[Discover God's power and presence in your healings for confidence that evil is unreal.]
Metaphysical Application Ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson on

"Are Sin, Disease and Death Real"
for October 9, 2017

by Kerry Jenkins, CS, House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com (314) 406-0041

[SPECIAL LAST MINUTE OPENINGS FOR BIBLE STUDY ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION WITH MADELON MAUPIN, OCTOBER 19-23 CLICK http://www.cedarscamps.org/information/programs/adult-bible-study/ FOR MORE INFO AND TO SIGN UP!]

This week we get to discover the nothingness of sin, disease and death. Jesus revealed more than anyone, the omnipotent God who governs His creation with love, who leaves no room in His kingdom for evil to exist. Mrs. Eddy discovered the laws behind Jesus' works, and gave us the key (both Christian Science and Science and Health) that helps us demonstrate more readily the unreality of this triad of evil. As we come to discover for ourselves God's power, goodness and presence in our lives through healing, we feel greater and greater confidence in this bold statement that evil is unreal. It is material sense that "tells" us of that which opposes the Truth of God's allness. In this lesson we'll get a few ideas to combat the false sense. We'll replace the lie with the clearer picture that we get when we are relying on spiritual sense, bestowed on us by our Father-Mother.

Golden Text (G.T.): In this Golden Text we find one key to eradicating the false evidence of material sense. "Be not afraid…". This is key to healing. On page 411:27 of Science and Health (S23) Mrs. Eddy tells us "Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients." She goes on to explain that relieving fear "…alleviates the symptoms of every disease…". And if we remove fear utterly, we are healed! Why do you think this is? Why would fear be such a big part of the seeming reality of disease and death especially, but sin as well? I think maybe one explanation lies in the fact that when we are afraid of something we have utterly bought into its seeming reality. If something evil is real, well then, we should be afraid! "Be not afraid of their faces:" is followed by "for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord." We don't have to be afraid of the "faces" of evil, however it presents itself. And the reason is, that God is all good, and governs absolutely.

Responsive Reading: [Here's a Bible link between singing & healing. See PS#1 from CC.] Instead of being afraid of the "faces" of evil that we have in our Golden Text, we can seek the face of God! This is what verse 8 of Psalm 27 tells us. The New Living Translation doesn't match the "face" part well, but is a beautiful version: "My heart has heard you say "come and talk with me". And my heart responds, "Lord, I am coming." There's a childlike quality to that version that is inspiring. Whenever we feel we are being dragged "down to the pit" in any way, be it sickness or sin, sadness, anger, even death, we can turn to the "face" of God. That might suggest a closeness to our divine parent, a sense of being seen and seeing and understanding His identity with no distance between us and Him. We will surely feel unafraid when we are facing toward God and we realize that He is ever facing toward His offspring.

Section 1: Evil—God didn't make it and doesn't know it.

It stands out to me as radical that, in Christian Science, God is omniscient, but does not know evil. I could certainly be wrong, but I think that is not a widely held understanding of God. In the two previous Bible lessons we have had short pieces of the creation story from Genesis. In this section, we have the creation story from John. [B1 and PS#2] It is affirmed that All things were made by God and nothing was made without Him. This means that either God made evil, and must therefore know of it, or He didn't make it, and it must be a trick of our senses. Once again, in citation B4, we are told to fear not because God's presence, His omnipotence, keeps us safe, healthy, whole. Glimpsing this fact makes evil disappear. Something that is true, that is from Truth, has substance and integrity. It cannot disappear. I had a quick and powerful healing a few months ago while working as a practitioner for a group of high school students at camp. I had been feeling very ill, managing to work during the day and participate as needed, but then skipping dinner and falling into bed. My treatments didn't seem to yield a lot of progress and the discomfort was significant. I called for some extra support and was reminded that there is not a single other cause out there other than God/Good. I woke up the next morning ready to go. They needed an extra adult to hike with one of the groups and I happily and confidently volunteered. We hiked ten miles that day with nearly 2,000 feet of elevation included. I felt freer and freer the more we hiked and it was a joy to be in the presence of these cheerful and loving students as they supported each other and got better acquainted throughout the day. By acknowledging in my heart that there was no cause for anything but good, (and with the help of the practitioner :-), I was able to feel truth established in my consciousness and in my experience. Sickness then disappeared. ["to all generations" (B2), PS#3]

Section 2: Know your true selfhood and you will find yourself delivered from sin.

Sin can be a sticky subject because sometimes it can seem like it is fun. But we can keep ourselves from following wrong desires when we get even a glimpse of ourselves as the pure and lovely likeness of God. To do this, we have to practice it (S13). That means we have to daily practice the qualities of our true identity. While these qualities may have unique renditions, they include tenderness, compassion, moral courage, purity, integrity, intelligence, wisdom, patience, discernment, and so on. Each moment we can think about how we embody these kinds of qualities and practice them. Soon, we start to see them as our natural being, because they are! Joseph certainly practiced this kind of self-knowledge throughout his life. He early knew that he had spiritual discernment and insight that came from God. (It could be argued that he may not have been so wise to share this divine insight with his brothers!) But in all seriousness, each step of his life unfolded to bring him to the point where he became the man who saved all of Egypt, and much of Israel and other surrounding countries, from mass starvation. In this particular juncture in his life, working as an overseer for a wealthy Egyptian, he refuses the persistent advances of his master's wife. This is Joseph's practice of integrity. This is a quality that we see him demonstrating with diligence at each juncture in his life story. He is unfairly treated repeatedly, and yet his practice of this integrity causes him always to prosper. Our defense against the temptations of sin comes through this true self-knowledge. In this way we really can "hold [ourselves] superior to sin, because God made [us] superior to it and governs man…" (S9).

Section 3: There is no evil in the kingdom of heaven.

This is true—no evil in the kingdom of heaven, and if it looks like there is, we wait for our consciousness to mature, to deepen in understanding, and the appearance of that evil burns away. This section contains the parable of the tares and the wheat. [Citation B10 and PS#4] The man who sows the good seed is completely unruffled in this story, when his workers reveal to him that there are tares (error) growing in his field. First of all, he doesn't start questioning whether or not the seed he sowed was good. If the farmer represents the Father, God, then He only makes good! He is unperturbed by the suggestion that evil is growing alongside good, he certainly doesn't question the quality of his seed (His creation). He doesn't even want them to focus on pulling out these tares. Rather he waits until they are easy to identify, remove, and burn. (It is the workers that need to develop their ability to recognize the nothingness of these tares, not the farmer!) After burning (purifying thought), all that can be seen is the good, as it has been all along. Yes, it does appear to our senses that evil is "growing" alongside what is good. But when we understand more deeply that God is the only source and only makes good, we can remain as unperturbed as the farmer in this parable, by the suggestion of evil's "reality". Citation S18 describes the mental process of understanding the "great facts of Life" that defeat material sense testimony. Citation B11 reiterates the call to "be not afraid". Fearlessness means we can face the suggestion of evil without being impressed. This process is described in citation S17 this way: "…Science separates the wheat from the tares, through the realization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness." This realization of God's ever presence is a sure way to chase away fear!! One cool way to really feel God's omnipresence is to read from the Bible or Mrs. Eddy's writings, especially Science and Health. Some years ago while we were on a family trip my oldest son Huck dropped a heavy rock on his foot while goofing around with cousins in a river. It appeared as if he might have broken his big toe. At any rate, it didn't look "normal" and was causing him a lot of discomfort. I carried him back to our cabin and together we shared some truths that we have learned about God. But that night he was not able to rest because the pain seemed too intense. I had already given it a good Christian Science treatment so I just opened Science and Health and began to read to him aloud. He immediately became peaceful, unperturbed, and shortly after he fell asleep and rested through the entire night. He was up and at it the next day, only limping a bit. Less than a week later he raced in a 5k and made good time in it too! That is not the only time that I have found that reading directly from Science and Health has brought nearly instantaneous healing of various discomforts with my children!

Section 4: With God's "face" shining on us, we can lose our fear of disease.

In this section Jesus heals a woman who had been subject for twelve years to a disease that not only caused her great physical difficulty, no doubt, but also made her a social outcast. [Citation B16 and PS#6] In healing this woman, Jesus saw her need for recognition after years of being marginalized. By recognition, I don't mean public acknowledgement as much as seeing her as an individual of worth, of purity and Godlikeness. He knew that mortal mind was calling out for healing, for Love (S19). Love's answer destroyed the woman's fear of this disease. Without fear to lend it a sense of reality, it disappeared.

I love to go for walks with our family dog, Buttercup. We often walk through a neighborhood across from the end of our driveway. For many months now, this walk was becoming more and more challenging because of a dog that kept coming out and barking ferociously, baring her teeth, and once biting Buttercup. Her owner always proclaimed that she was harmless, while yelling for her to "come", which she studiously ignored. It got to the point where we were walking almost under the windows of the house across the street just to give Maya more room to feel less "threatened" by us. One day this summer I suddenly realized that I hadn't even thought to pray for Maya. (I knew her name because I'd heard her owner yell it so often!) I gave the whole situation a treatment right then and there. I based it on the idea that Maya, being an idea of God's, couldn't be afraid, threatened, or insecure. She lives in Love's kingdom and is governed by divine Love and by Mind. By the time we ran into Maya again a few days later, she barked once, and ran to me and licked my hand. I've had several encounters with her since, all of them full of hugs, pats and even belly rubs. The removal of fear, my own and Maya's, caused those false qualities of aggression and insecurity to disappear. In a way, Maya was "reaching out" for that Christ healing just as that woman was. Our job is to recognize the call when it comes and to meet it with Love. ["among all nations"–answering international discords as well! Ps. 67.2, (B13 & PS#5]

Section 5: Even death can be confronted and healed.

This may sound like a tall order. We can practice diligently this Science of seeing reality and ready our consciousness to take this step towards a greater recognition of man's eternal Life. As we practice the qualities that make sin become nothing to us—when sin holds no temptation, no fear for us, we are taking steps to destroy the suggestion of death's reality as well. Romans 6:16 tells us "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Why "sin unto death"? Because as long as we are trying to enjoy matter, we are experiencing and living in the dream of matter to some extent. Matter is not Life. But as we overcome sin, we find our consciousness becoming spiritualized. Mortal mind becomes more "transparent" and less and less an obstacle to our understanding of eternal Life. We lose the element of fear more and more in this practice and fear is certainly a big element in the suggestion of death. This healing in citation B20 is two-fold. In raising the young man from death, Jesus also gave a great gift of life to his mother. As a widow, she would have been condemned to a life of begging, or worse, had she not gotten her son back. Jesus knew the importance of this and his first words were words of comfort to the mother, before he healed the son. [See PS#7 for C.C. insights.]

Section 6: Christian Science reveals God's goodness and allness.

If God is good and all, then evil must be nothing. This section is a benediction on the entire lesson, blessing this radical stand for evil's unreality. This demonstration of the nothingness of evil is not beyond a single one of us. We can take it up at any minute in a day, one little suggestion at a time. We can recognize God's good power at work in governing our tempers, appetites, health, joy, stability, and anxiety or fear. Remember that we are spiritually established ideas, given dominion from the beginning of creation. Each of the last three lessons have established that in one way or another. We can take up this truth with confidence, fearlessness and authority.


Click to enjoy CedarS Online version of Warren Huff's addition of several Cobbey Crisler insights on select Bible citations from this Christian Science Bible Lesson on “Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?” for October 8, 2017.


[LETTING CEDARS TOP NEEDS OF THE WEEK BE KNOWN:

  • A MATCHING GIFT for CEDARS SPORTS CENTER!
    CONFERENCE TABLES are needed to make our new Sports Center ideal for UPCOMING Bible and leadership conferences as well as for summer youth leadership courses. We are VERY grateful that some dear donors recently pledged to fully underwrite the acoustical treatment needed for our new Sports Center to become a PERFECT place to host INSPIRATIONAL RETREATS for Christian Science Nurses, Bible Students, youth groups, churches, sports teams…! This will also make the space ideal for all future sporting and all-camp events!
  • "Maintenance Musts" Matching Funds! This hugely helpful matching grant offer has been renewed by dear supporters to match up to $25,000 through December 31, 2017! We have several recent donations to this fund total a little over $1,700.

We are profoundly grateful for ongoing outpourings of love and support that have met many of our afore-listed needs!

Especially helpful are your much-needed MONTHLY gifts, past and ongoing, that can be started and adjusted as you wish at: www.cedarscamps.org/giving ]

[You can also reach a member of the Founding family nearly anytime in our winter home/office by PHONE at 636-394-6162

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[CedarS weekly Metaphysical Newsletter is provided at no charge to the 1,200 campers and staff blessed each summer at CedarS, as well as to CedarS alumni, families and friends who have requested it. However, current and planned gifts are a big help and are greatly appreciated in defraying the costs of running this service and of providing needed camperships, programs and operations support.

[The Met application ideas above are provided primarily to help CedarS campers and staff (as well as friends) see and daily demonstrate the great value of studying and applying the Christian Science Bible lessons throughout the year, not just at camp! YOU CAN ALSO SIGN UP for weekly emails from past CedarS staff of possible ways to share Bible Lesson applications with older, as well as younger, Sunday School classes by clicking the "Subscribe Now" button (lower left) at http://www.cedarscamps.org/metaphysical/

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