GEMS TO HELP US PROVE THE UNREALITY OF SIN, DISEASE, & DEATH!
USE BIBLICAL EXAMPLES AS SPRINGBOARDS FOR MODERN-DAY PROOFS!
Insights by Cobbey Crisler and others** for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?”
for October 10, 2021
(shared with Janet Crisler’s blessing) by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
SEE ALL YOU DO AS FLOWING WITH DIVINELY-PERFECT PLACEMENT AND TIMING – FOR GOD’S GLORY!
“It is God that… makes my way perfect.” (cit. B17/Ps. 18:32) “…as in heaven, so on earth”– (SH 17:2)
An Answered Prayer (A.P.) History application of Eccl. 3:14 (Golden Text) will work for you!
[Warren Huff, now CedarS Executive Director Emeritus:] When CedarS current Executive Director, our daughter, Holly Huff (now Bruland), was on the Principia Upper School basketball team they made it into the district semi-final tournament. They were up against a highly-favored Orchard Farm team that featured a very tall, dominate post player.
During Principia’s team prayer session before this game Holly shared one application idea from the Bible lesson that we/she had been trying to apply to her three-point shooting. She also shared another idea about Jesus’ knowing the thoughts of his opponents that she was hoping to demonstrate to a greater degree in her defensive work as well as her knowing when to pass and shoot in her work as a point and/or shooting guard.
The Spiritual Application idea that relates to shooting appears again in this week’s Bible Lesson
as the Golden Text from Ecclesiastes 3:14: “whatsoever God doeth shall be forever…”
- (It goes on…) “nothing can be put to it,”—as in an “air-ball” (or a short) shot would need to have more “put to it” to score —
- “nor any thing taken from it”—as in a “brick” (or a too long, volleyball spike out of bounds) that would need to have something “taken from it” to make it count.
The key to shooting such a perfect, “nothing-but-net” shot in basketball (soccer …) is to make sure that it is “whatsoever God” is doing— to acknowledge it is being done through God and for His/Her glory.
The other Spiritual Application idea had to do with each player’s reflected right to have and to follow “all-knowing” Mind’s intuitions. This was “seeking first the kingdom of God” and among the many “added-unto” blessings that followed would be both seeing and making perfect passes as well as anticipating and intercepting your opponent’s passes. This application idea was based on a Bible story in the Lesson in which “Jesus knew their thoughts”. [This is from Matthew 9:4 where Jesus’ prayer detected and rejected the opposing elements in thought before he healed the paralyzed man.]
With just 5 minutes to go in the 4th quarter of this District Basketball Tournament, Principia, as the “Cinderella” or “David team” against the “Goliath team,” was trailing by 12 points. Coach Norm Purdy called a time-out and reaffirmed those application ideas as they applied to having a strong finish for this game and the season – all of it for the glory of God.
When these inspired young women came back out on the court, it was like a different game. Principia players anticipated pass after pass from their opponents to make great steals, passes and lay-ups. And the girls launched a flawless series of perfect three-point shots. As the clock clicked down to the final buzzer, “Prin” was still down by two points. The play that had been drawn-up wasn’t open. So, Holly had to “put up a prayer” from well beyond the three-point arc. Just as the buzzer went off it “swished” through the net – all for God’s glory—all as part of “whatsoever God” was doing. With that amazing 1-point win, Principia advanced to the district championship.
Thanks be to God for every time you feel a foretaste of “a new heaven and a new earth” in a divinely flowing rhythm with perfectly accurate anticipation, timing and execution of “whatsoever God is doing” through YOU—all for His/Her glory! (cit. B19/Rev. 21:1, 3, 4; SH 91; cit. S27/573:29)
LET YOUR LIFE SING THE HYMN INSPIRED BY RESPONSIVE READING VERSES
“Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. … Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” (Responsive Reading/Psalm 143:8, 10)
Hymn 457
REFRAIN / Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning; / Teach me to do Your will, O God. / Cause me to know the way where I should place my feet / To walk in the pathway of Your love.
Verse 1 / Not in the storm, nor the earthquake, nor the wave; / You’re not in the wind, nor the flame. / In the still of the evening, in the hush of the morning, / Call my name. / / REFRAIN / Verse 2 / Truth is my Rock; there is nothing I shall fear. / You still all my worry and woe. / And my heart’s overflowing now; I rest where / Your quiet waters flow. / / REFRAIN
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 457:1–3)
A PEP Talk on how “ALL things work together for good…”— even when it doesn’t look it.
How Joe’s Answered Prayer History (cit. B5/Gen 50:15+S7/589) proved to be Warren’s too
[A Warren Huff application idea:] Have you ever been bullied or treated unfairly?
Joseph (and I) sure were treated unfairly in mean ways that looked very bad, but which resulted in great good. (You can read in Genesis 37-50 how Joseph’s mistreatment by his brothers and Potiphar’s wife, all turned out to bless him and his family— and even saved him, them and many others from starvation.)
No matter what bad things happened TO Joseph – and no matter what bad things happen TO you and TO me, we can, like Joseph, declare that they are happening FOR us. With God bring good and totally FOR us as well as in charge of our lives and of those around us, we, like Joseph, can refuse to be discouraged and can keep living to give, seeking to bless those around us, even those who seem to be our enemies.
I was able to overcome inharmony and unjust bullying in my first workplace (other than CedarS) by using Joseph’s example and Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual definition for Joseph as found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It reads in part: “JOSEPH. … pure affection blessing its enemies.”— page 589:20/citation S7) My situation was that the owner of TEAM One Architects in Kansas City who hired me for my first job after graduating from Princeton University, made a big deal of that – which caused a good bit of jealousy and hostility from my immediate job supervisor. Not only did he assign me all the least meaningful and most tedious jobs to do, but he also took aggressive actions to make my work look bad before our mutual employer. (In days before CAD (Computer Assisted Drafting) this took form in his smeared my pencil lettering and poking holes with a drafting triangle in what I’d worked on all day.)
I tried not to react, but rather respond with love and prayer. On my drive home after his most aggressive attack, I started to really pray the “Daily Prayer” — line by line, idea by idea. (Church Manual 41) When I got to the part which reads “rule out of ME all sin,” I realized that although the healing seemed to be needed in another, the solution to this and to every problem really needed to take place in me, in my consciousness and in my loving response.
I naturally looked to Jesus as my supreme role model, more than to Joseph. After all, Jesus had overcome hatred, injustice and persecution in their harshest forms. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when he’d been captured and was being led away to be unjustly tried, whipped, tortured and crucified, I recalled his example of healing the cut-off ear of one who was leading him away to this awful experience. When I got home I looked up the spiritual definition of Gethsemane in the Glossary chapter of “… the Key to the Scriptures.” The application idea in this definition that stood out to me to use in my situation was “love meeting no response, but still remaining love.” (SH 586:23-25)
I determined to follow Jesus’ example and be loving no matter the response. The next day started out no differently, except that during a work break, my persecutor realized and said out loud that it was his wedding anniversary and that he not only had no card or gift, but that he’d left his car at the repair shop with his wallet inside it by mistake and so he had no way to shop for anything during the upcoming lunch hour. Because of my prayers and desire to remain loving and to bless even my so-called my enemies, I quickly said, “Here are the keys to my Opel GT and money to borrow to buy whatever is needed.” From then on, we became best of friends both in and out of the office. We waterskied often behind his boat and played Frisbee or racquetball almost daily in the park, went together to Christian Science lectures… What cannot love do, for “Love never fails!” (1st Corinthians 13:8)
Take a minute to pray about how you intend to use love to heal any and all inharmony in your workplace your home and/or our country and world. Don’t hesitate to give past challenges your best “retroactive treatments” to release all involved from a past, present or future of wrongdoing. Instead, see them and yourself as always loving and by nature eager to bless. Try pledging to have as your own that mind of Christ that keeps the following Beatitudes daily.
Pledge to be:
Free from pride (poor in spirit):
Quick to forgive (merciful): and to
Win without a fight (a peace maker) …
**You can find this and other new GEMs in Blue Lettering added to my earlier online posting and email sharing.
BE FORGIVEN as YOU NO LONGER BELIEVE SIN to be PLEASURABLE & STOP IT!
EVOLUTION of the THIRD TENET (citation S8/497:9)
(Note: The third tenet first appeared in the 1887 tenets, as part of the second tenet.)
Current edition
3. We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
1887 “Tenets to be Signed by those Uniting …”
Second. — We acknowledge one Father, Son and Holy Ghost, — one God, the brotherhood of man, and Divine Science. And the forgiveness of sin, which is the destruction of sin. And the atonement of Christ, which is the efficacy of Truth and Life. And the way of salvation marked out by Jesus, which is healing the sick, casting out devils [evils], and raising the dead, — uplifting a dead faith into Life and Love.
1892 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”) –
2. We acknowledge and adore one Supreme God. We acknowledge His Son, the Holy Ghost, and man in His image and likeness. We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin, in the destruction of sin, and His present and future punishment of “whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.” We acknowledge the atonement of Christ, as the efficacy of Truth and Love. And the way of Salvation as demonstrated by Jesus casting out evils, healing the sick, and raising the dead, — resurrecting a dead faith to seize the great possibilities and living energies of the Divine Life.
1893 (from “Church Tenets and Rules”)
- We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin, in the destruction of sin; and His punishment of “whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.” We acknowledge the atonement as the efficacy and evidence of Divine Love, of man’s unity with God, and of the great merits of the Way-shower.
81st edition (1894)
- We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin, in the destruction of sin, and that sin and suffering are not eternal.
179th edition (1900)
- God’s forgiveness of sin, in the destruction of sin, and the understanding that sin and suffering are neither real nor eternal.
251st edition (1902)
- We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin, and in the understanding that evil and sin are unreal, hence not eternal. But the love of sin is punished, so long as it lasts.
263rd edition (1903)
- We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin, and in the understanding that evil and sin are unreal, hence not eternal. But the belief in sin is punished, so long as it lasts.
1908(a) edition
- We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
CREDIT TO: THE MARY BAKER EDDY LIBRARY FOR THE BETTERMENT OF HUMANITY
research@mbelibrary.org ∙ www.mbelibrary.org
FULLY ACCEPT that ANYTHING that SEEMS to BIND YOU IS NOT from GOD!
Cobbey Crisler on Luke 13:10-17 from his talk on “Jesus and Equality of Woman”
[Cobbey:] “Luke Chapter 13, Verse 11. Here is a case which only Luke gives us. Luke, supposedly a physician, does not say she has an infirmity but “a spirit of infirmity,” a mental sense of infirmity, “eighteen years bowed over,” spinal difficulty of some sort, rheumatic perhaps, “she could not lift up herself.”
Verse 12. Jesus addresses her in his typical fashion. That way that no one other than Jesus had ever addressed a woman before. It seems kind of impersonal, perhaps abrupt, but it has the general sense of womanhood, as if he were addressing womanhood generally through the representative in front of him: “womanhood, You are loosed from your infirmity.” Notice that declarative statement, “you are free, Woman, from your infirmity.” That must be the truth because Jesus said, “It is the truth that makes one free.” (John 8:32). Therefore, what has bound her or kept her in bondage must not be from God who would only be capable of truth, but if that liar, which he defines (in John 8:44) the devil as Satan.
Verse 16, “Satan (meaning the Prosecuting Attorney) hath bound this woman.” She was created to be free (like YOU). Satan and disease are linked there. Not God as the cause of loss or pain, or disease, or failure. Satan’s (the Prosecuting Attorney’s) already been defined as a lie. Truth is the only way to freedom in Jesus’ theology.”
“Jesus and Equality of Woman,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
HERE ARE EXCERPTS from KEN COOPER’S INTRODUCTION to a POEM HE WROTE about this HEALING:
[Ken:] “Jesus perceived the thoughts and righteousness of a woman with a spirit of infirmity eighteen years. She was receptive, and that loosed her from infirmity. He knew the expression of Truth is never failing, our freedom constant and now. Her poem is attached, her story narrated by my wife, Sue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRYNnM_XxQs
“One healing proves the truth for all healings. The touch of the Christ is available to everyone, it needs to be perceived, received and then conceived in demonstration and joy, – like a flowing river assured of its own progress and fulfillment.” More information is available on You Tube under SHOW MORE.
APPLY for YOU & YOURS Paul’s Answered Prayer (AP) History of RAISING THE DEAD
What cannot God do! Cobbey Crisler on Acts 20:6 -12/cit. B14
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 20, Verse 6. They’re getting ready to sail. Paul separates from them. At Troas, “We abode seven days.” Paul, and maybe Luke, were there seven days.
[Verse 9.] You know how long-winded Paul could be. And I hope I’m not repeating his example here, and I don’t want to find any Eutychae here in the audience, because “Eutychus, fell into a deep sleep.” Anyone here feel like entering into that condition? I hope not because “Eutychus sank down and fell from the third loft.”
Verse 10. If that wasn’t enough of a problem, “Paul ran down and fell on him as well, but announces, “Don’t trouble yourselves, his life is in him.” This looks like it may not have been as instant resuscitation or healing. It could have involved broken bones and everything.
[Verse 11.] Paul goes back, continues talking, breaks bread, and eats.
Verse 12. “At dawn they bring the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.” The man was alive and healed, no broken bones, apparently. There is, again, a major healing that we see.”
“After the Master, What? The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
HERE’s a KEN COOPER POETIC MONOLOGUE HE WROTE about this HEALING, called “The Mother of Eutychus.”
Feel the moving words of a mother who has been listening to the words and inspiration of Paul, when she is suddenly challenged to put Paul’s words into practice when her son appears to have died from a fall…
EMBRACE THE UNDEFILED, SUPREMELY HAPPY WHOLENESS of the HOLY CITY, right WITHIN YOU!
Cobbey Crisler on Rev. 21:1-4/citation B19) + cit. S27/573
[Cobbey:] “Revelation 21 and 22 … We’ve seen it in previous Scripture but we find that it is the chosen Scriptural summary, the peak, the ultimate, and Jesus is associated with it. How much purer could Scripture be, coming from God through Jesus to John to us? And John saw that “new heaven and new earth” [Revelation 21:1/cit. B19 & cit. S27/ 576:3]. …
“John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem. (S27 592:18) We know its origin, coming from God prepared as a bride. Finally, the bride prepared, adorned for her husband. [Verse 2] The tabernacle of God with men, [Revelation 21] Verse 3.
“Verse 4, there is a check-off list in this Holy City. There are no more tears, no more salty reminders of the sea in our bodies chemically. We’ve been told there’s “no more sea” in Verse 1. No more sea, no more tears, no more death, no sorrow, crying or pain, not in this consciousness. It’s the Holy City. That also means that it’s whole. There’s nothing that can fragment it. The tribes embrace it at the gates. The restored and regenerated tribes. The collective idea of you and me working together as chords under the divine principle of a grand music that fills the universe and all eternity….”
“The Holy City: Its Biblical Basis and Development,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
