PLEASE GOD by GIVING YOUR ATTENTION TO WHAT’S SPIRITUAL, NOT TO THE FLESH (MATTER)!
Applications ideas for us to follow to make MODERN-DAY DEMONSTRATIONS of the Christ power!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as found in The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Matter”
for March 20, 2022
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
WORSHIP BY PARTAKING IN GOD’S OWN NATURE. As Jesus tells the woman at the well in Samaria. Cobbey Crisler on John 4:24/citation B1
[Cobbey:] John 4:23, ”The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. “Look at the definition of worship. “Worship is spiritual,” not structural, not geographical, not ritualistic. Why? Because worship of God can only properly be done by partaking of God’s own nature.
John 4:24 tells us that “God is Spirit. Therefore, worshiping Spirit can only be done spiritually.” There’s no other way to do it. How basic. By the way, when you see “a Spirit” in there. It shouldn’t be there.
Listen to what God says about it. Notice the strong tenor of his words. To translate “God is a Spirit” is the most gross perversion of the meaning. “A Spirit” implies one of a class of “pneumata,” the Greek word for it. There is no trace, in the fourth gospel, of the vulgar conception of a multitude of spirits. “God is Spirit.” Mathematically one can only derive from Spirit included in it. Namely, spirituality is the derivation. Worship must be that.
… Jesus is discussing intellectual problems of Scripture with a woman. This is unheard of!”
“John, The Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TO PLEASE GOD, GIVE YOUR ATTENTION TO WHAT’S SPIRITUAL, NOT TO THE FLESH!
Cobbey Crisler & Mary Baker Eddy on Romans 8:5-8/cit. B5 “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”)
[Cobbey:] “Remember the consistency of the Scripture. This is what turns us into students. The consistency of the Scripture would force us to study in depth how we please God. Here is ‘My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ How do we please God? Do you remember any particular Scriptural statements on that?… One of the things that Paul says about it in Romans 8:8 is, ‘They that are in the flesh (they that are earthly minded, who obey the lower nature) cannot please God.’ “
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren again: The preceding verses, Romans 8:5-7/cit. B5, with other translations shed more light on the challenge of earthly-minded body worship that seems prevalent today in obsessions with fitness, diet, revealing “selfies” … (Verse 5) “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” (“People who are controlled by the physical, think of what is physical: and people who are controlled by the spiritual, think of—give their attention to—what is spiritual.” Goodspeed (Verse 6) “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (“But to set the mind on the flesh brings death, whereas to set the mind on the Spirit brings life and peace.” The New Testament: A New Translation (Olaf M. Norlie)
These passages and many more from Mary Baker Eddy have helped heal body-worship and lots of resulting ills and issues: “Paul said, ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.’ Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man’s finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit.” (S&H 223:2)
“There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” (S&H 468:9)
These ideas from Miscellaneous Writings describe the form, color, light, and beauty of our world being loved promises and representatives “of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.” (Mis. 87) “My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired. Earth is more spiritually beautiful to my gaze now than when it was more earthly to the eyes of Eve. The pleasant sensations of human belief, of form and color, must be spiritualized, until we gain the glorified sense of substance as in the new heaven and earth, the harmony of body and Mind…
“Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmosphere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal environment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must grow out of even this pleasing thralldom, and find wings to reach the glory of supersensible Life; then we shall soar above, as the bird in the clear ether of the blue temporal sky.
“To take all earth’s beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God’s creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: ‘I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light,
and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.’” (Miscellaneous Writings. 86:14- 87:14)]
BIBLICAL WISDOM FROM ABOVE STEMS FROM COMMITMENT TO ONENESS, KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, AND LIVES THAT WAY.
Cobbey Crisler on wisdom as defined in Job 28:12, 23/citation B6:
[Cobbey:] “Job 28:12 shows what we’re after, “Where’s wisdom going to be found? Where’s the place of understanding?”…
“In Job 28:23 part of the answer, “God understandeth the way, and he knows the place.” But what does that do for us? That’s only part of the answer.
In Job 28:28 is the second part, “Unto man he says, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;” and the other side of the coin is “to depart from evil [that’s] understanding.” …
“This is the Bible’s definition of wisdom in its utter simplicity. It is so simple, everybody. Wisdom is to know the difference between right and wrong and to live that way. … Here is the essence of wisdom. Do you remember the author of Hebrews [1:9] in looking for an adequate description of Jesus reaching back into the Book of Psalms and says that the thing which distinguished him above all others was that “he loved righteousness and hated iniquity” and that’s what lifted him above. He said in John 12:32, “And I, if I be lifted up [above the earth], will draw all [men] unto me.”
We must deal with the plus and minus in thought. We cannot ignore one of them any more than we can have the Ten Commandments without the Beatitudes, or vice versa.”
… “We already know that James read Job because we read the verse (James 5:11) that mentions Job in it…
“James 1:6 tells us how we should pray. You’ll find when prayer is not prayer… “Let him ask in faith nothing wavering.” Wavering suggests this to-and-fro state of mind… James 1:8 “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”…
“James 3:17 (B1) “But the wisdom that is from above” all stems from the commitment to oneness.”
“The Case of Job,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
PRINCETON PROOFS FOR WARREN & YOU: OVERCOME ACUTE PAIN AND HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGES THROUGH PRAYER
See application ideas from this week’s Bible Lesson (cits. B8/B10/Dan. 2:1-44 & S11/84:11)
“One of my many landmark healings in Christian Science occurred when I was a freshman at Princeton University. Somehow all fifteen hours of my five three-hour finals were scheduled for the first two days of exam week. On top of that, due to daily football practice and working multiple jobs, I had fallen behind on heavy reading assignments in a couple of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I felt pressured and inadequate. I asked myself, “How am I ever going to be ready to read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
“Just as I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, a dull pain in my right side that I’d been aware of overnight suddenly became very sharp and would not go away. A roommate, whose dad was a doctor, suggested that it looked like my appendix had burst and that I was having an appendicitis attack. I chose to handle this suggestion with prayer, just as I’d had done successfully to meet many other challenges — from making hard decisions to experiencing very quick healings of broken bones, severe wounds, sprained ankles, torn cartilage, and more. When this very aggressive problem refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth on campus to call a Christian Science Practitioner for help (this was long before cell phones).
I was seeking the uniquely powerful and prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment, given with professional warmth and principled love. On this occasion, though, none of the practitioners I knew from Christian Science summer camp or from church answered their phones, and no human help seemed to be readily available. So, I hobbled—still doubled over in pain— to a nearby Christian Science Reading Room on Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey. The Reading Room’s “quiet precincts” were a perfect place to reach out directly to God for angel messages and my healing.
“For several hours that Saturday, I was the only visitor to the private study area in the back of the Reading Room. That sacred privacy enabled me to feel free enough to stretch out on the floor whenever sitting wasn’t comfortable. Whenever I physically struggled, I spiritually snuggled up to apply passages that I felt the Comforter was indelibly teaching me from that week’s Christian Science Bible lesson. I kept coming back to an uplifting assurance in a sentence in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which reads, “… Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.” (SH 57) I saw clearly that as long as my heart was sighing (moaning, groaning, complaining…) over the world—over exam-based concerns, time-based pressures and body-based pains— it could not begin “to unfold its wings for heaven” and healing.
“Through prayer, I began to “unfold the wings of my heart for heaven” by turning away from my worldly worries and toward the infinite possibilities of being at one with all-knowing, divine Mind. Another insight I found in the Bible Lesson was the account of Daniel’s divine intuition that enabled him to first discern the dream which the king had forgotten and then rightly interpret it (Daniel 2:1-23). I reasoned that his example showed me that I too could have any direct insight needed from divine Mind. I felt that God was telling me that Daniel’s talent was my talent too, and that God would give me the healing insights I needed for both physical healing and to know what I needed to study and what to write on my upcoming exams. I loved that Daniel’s explanation of how he knew the dream and its meaning, telling the king, “there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.” (Daniel 2:28). Daniel’s words helped me feel more confidence and peaceful about my upcoming exams.
“I also distinctly remember finding relief in affirming for myself, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (SH 180:25)
“That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect place sing some favorite hymns. I knew by heart scores of hymns and all of Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns from years of singing them in Sunday School and in camp hymn sings. This may seem like an unconventional way to study for exams, but, in hindsight, I was being forced to prioritize feeling my one-ness with God by cherishing each word of every hymn that came to me. This turned out to be the best possible exam preparation that I’ve ever done.
“I’ll always remember concluding my hymn singing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge,” a poem and hymn by Mary Baker Eddy. My tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain lifted as I let my heart sing the following words, “O’er waiting harps strings 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 burden’s light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright… I see Christ walk and come to me and tenderly divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock… whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
“With renewed freedom, I was inspired not just to walk, but to run back to my Dodd Hall dorm room, to eat normally and to prepare with peaceful inspiration Saturday night and Sunday for my first four final exams (9-hours worth) on Monday and and 3 more hours on Tuesday morning. I felt divinely directed toward just what I needed to review and felt great and full of gratitude to God about my first four exams.
“However, when I opened the fifth exam on Tuesday afternoon, my heart fell as I read all the exam questions which asked me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend but did not because of the healing time I needed to spend in the Reading Room. I was seriously tempted to just go up to the exam proctor and turn in the exam with a note that I’d had a health challenge, was unable to adequately prepare for the exam, and to ask to take the course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my good work going into the final could at least get me a “Pass” on my transcript for this Sociology course.
“Then, I remembered the citations from the Christian Science Bible Lesson that I’d mined in the Reading Room as cherished gems to apply to myself. I recalled the account of Daniel humbly knowing it was not in him, but in God to give the right answer.
“As I stood up from my desk with the intention to humanly give up, rather than try to write about books that I hadn’t even read, an angel message stopped me, saying “I am the same Mind that made this test and that wrote every book and I am with you to take this test and tell you everything you need to know.” I heard these words as a direct message from God. I gained confidence from this angel message and from remembering other ideas from the Bible lesson I’d cherished and made my own during my healing time of study in the Reading Room.
“They included these passages from Science and Health:
“It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (cit. S11/84:11-18)
“A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” (SH 128:14)
“Spirit imparts the understanding uplifts consciousness and leads… This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments, it is the reality of all things brought to light.” (SH, 505:16, 26-28)
“I sat back down at my desk with a joyous and confident motive to glorify God by being a clear transparency to let God’s goodness shine through me. I strove to see myself as a “scribe under orders.” I was determined not to try to make up myself what I humanly didn’t know, but rather to make “welcome” divine Mind’s ideas. Ideas flowed and I wrote them down effortlessly. At the end of the three hours, I handed in the exam with a sense of inspired joy. And the next day I found out that my grade in the course actually improved! I was grateful and gave all glory to God alone. I had demonstrated that what cannot God do for me when I, like Daniel, know that “there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets” and so that in that divine Mind I have that I need, and I know it! This demonstration helped realized that every time we have no clue humanly how to answer any question or problem, we can turn to divine Mind for answers. All we ever need do is be “Looking unto (Christ) Jesus the author and finisher”! (Heb. 12:2)
“I have turned to this landmark healing for years as a reminder that we can always lean on God for refuge and strength, as a “very present help in trouble.” (Psalms 46:1)
Gratefully and humbly shared by Warren Huff, with all glory to God (being submitted soon to the Christian Science Publishing Society)
SEE EVERY ILL CURED BY GOD’S ORDERED GOVERNMENT OF HARMONY AT HAND!
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 4:23 (cit. B12):
Verse 23. And “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” Here are human problems that had defied solution, and Jesus solved them all based on his concept of theology, namely the kingdom. Remember a kingdom is not chaos. It’s an ordered government of heaven and harmony at hand.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DEMAND OF YOUR PATIENT (& YOURSELF) TO DO THE PART THAT GOD EQUIPPED YOU TO DO!
Cobbey Crisler on citation B14/Matthew 12:10-15 (and Luke 6:6-12)
[Cobbey:] “Matthew 12, Verse 13: Jesus says to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch forth your hand.” Notice, he did not go up to the man and do it physically for him. He said to the man, and notice what role he assigns to the patient in every case, “You do it.” You’re equipped to do it. That’s your part. Stretch forth your hand. Immediately this happened. It was whole again.” A fragment of the body could not depart along its separate route and create its own rules. The eye had to be single as God’s eye was single.
BONUS: (Verse 14). “The Pharisees went out, and held a council right there on how they could destroy Jesus.” They brought the man to Jesus and challenged him. Here a man’s whole life was turned around. One of the great insoluble problems, a man’s distorted physical being had been corrected and changed.
(Verse:15). “Jesus had to withdraw, but many followed him.”
“The Book of Matthew: Auditing the Master,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
STOP RESISTING THE HEALING POWER THAT COMES WHEN YOU “BE STILL AND KNOW…”
Cobbey Crisler on Psalms 46:10 (citation B16)
“Psalm 46, Verse 10. One of the simplest prescriptions for the human mind to take and one of the most difficult. The human mind resists to the hilt taking this one. “Be still and know that I [am] God.” The racket of thought quieted. It’s a very strong word, “Be still.” Jesus used those words to calm violence in nature [Mark 4:39], and also to cast out an unclean spirit [Mark 1:25]. It doesn’t belong in nature or human nature. Certainly it’s not part of the divine nature. So, “Be still” is [a] very emphatic verbal rebuke.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
