CLAIM SPIRITUAL GEMs for DOMINION over MATTER! LIVE TO GIVE GOD ALL GLORY!
Saturday, March 11th, 2023
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
CLAIM SPIRITUAL GEMs for DOMINION over MATTER!
BLESS & BE SUSTAINABLY BLESSED BY LIVING TO
GIVE ALL GLORY TO GOD!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey & others
as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Matter”
for Sunday, March 19, 2023
(Cobbey Crisler’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps
BLESS & BE SUSTAINABLY BLESSED BY LIVING TO
GIVE ALL GLORY TO GOD, THE SUSTAINING INFINITE!
[Warren:] From the opening Golden Text (GT) of this week’s Bible Lesson to its last Science and Health citations, we are given many precious promises. They assure us that when you give God all the “glory” in all you do (GT, Isaiah 42:5,8), and “hold thought steadfastly (to making “visible” your God-honoring dreams)… you will bring these into your experience proportionally to their occupancy of your thoughts.” (cit. 31, 264:13 and cit. S32, 261:4). This is the only way to free ourselves and all we do to break through the limits of matter and so “love into view” right dreams that honor God. You can read about many examples of this in a God-glorifying history of CedarS Camps by clicking (at the bottom of the online version of these GEMs) on a downloadable interviews that I was asked to give this past year. The first was with John Mitchell, Executive Director of Arden Wood, that was an inspirational interview to share in the second half of their May 1, 2022 Annual Meeting. It is filled with examples of rules that were applied— time, and time again, and one step at a time—to “love into view” divine blessings to “make visible” and shareable with all mankind for God’s honor and glory alone.
The second interview is a rooftop video one that I recently agreed to give to Sun Solar for them to post on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=207984578443983
This 3-minute video shows not only some great drone views of CedarS uniquely beautiful setting and fun activities but also the remarkable recent progress toward making CedarS ever-more sustainably comfortable with clean, green energy— all for God’s glory—as well as for sharing in the Fall and Spring with ever more visitors to CedarS Bible Lands Park. All “our own” summer camp visitors as well as ever more “shoulder-season” church groups (of various denominations) are given spiritual-sense, “time travel” experiences back to the Bible to take its Answered Prayer (AP) history and laws back home to their futures. In the past ten days, Sun Solar’s Facebook post of this interview has had over 12,000 views (plus a few recent and needed contributions). Such gifts are welcome to allow CedarS to add additional panels to become an even more sustainably energized example of how to be comfortably and operationally “green!”
AVOID BODILY BABBLES & PREDICTIONS OF DECLINE,
INJURY OR DISASTER. [Kathy Fitzer Met for March 19, 2023]
[Kathy Fitzer’s Met refers to the first verses of the Responsive Reading:] “I was especially struck by the 1st Timothy instruction to avoid “vain babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called.” (I Tim. 6:20) The body babbles at us all the time and human sciences often predict decline, injury or disaster. We need to challenge and turn away from anything that does not promote the lasting goodness of God — of Truth!”
LIKE JOB, FIND THE IDENTITY & UNITY OF 1 MIND & 1 SOUL TO SOLVE CONFLICTS OF MANY OPINIONS! Cobbey Crisler on Job 23:13, 14 (cit. B2):
[Cobbey:] “In Job 23:13 we find two revelations from God to Job about God’s nature. Because there’s only one way that you and I can ever find out anything out about God who is the only one who knows who God is, God [Himself/Herself]. God must do the revealing and here Job has two concepts revealed to him about God. And you know we don’t get anything unless we’re ready for it. Job is ready. He needs this, doesn’t he?… Why does Job need to know God as “one [mind], and as soul”?
What’s been his problem? One problem is identity. He said (in Job 9:21, 22) even “[if I said] I am perfect… Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul:” Here if soul is identified with God, where does one find one’s identity? The, whatever he was thinking about as his soul, if he had it, would have to image forth the One Soul. How many souls are there? If you relate the word “soul” to God, there is no other possible alternative than for a monotheist to see one, with whatever is revealed to us about God. That may be tough logic, but if soul is related to God, as a synonym, then there can only be One. So, to seek his identity in that oneness-of-God will tell him more about himself.
What about one mind? Why did he need to know that? [Voice: Because it was God?”] That’s right. And he’d been having a dialogue with many minds, hadn’t he? Nothing but just One Mind as opposed to many, polytheistic gods, or many minds, many opinions… Just think of that beautiful revelation that comes as a solution to all that.”
“The Book of Job: A Mental Court Case” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren Huff’s P.S. on a verse 14 BONUS: It relieves all fear of poor performance to know that “…he performeth the thing that is appointed for me…” This could be re-stated that “God is the performer; and we are the performance”… and that “many such things are with him.”
BIBLICAL WISDOM FROM ABOVE STEMS FROM COMMITMENT TO ONENESS, KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, AND LIVES THAT WAY.
Cobbey on wisdom as defined in Job 28:12, 23/cit. B3
[Cobbey Crisler:] “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**
STOP GIVING THE MOST THOUGHT, GLORY AND WORSHIP TO MATTER MODELS, STATUESQUE BODIES… FULLY DISCREDIT ALL FABLES WITH FACTS! [Kathy on cit. B8, I Kings 13:1-6 & Warren w/more]
[Kathy Fitzer writes for Section 2 in this week’s Met:]
“Matter (with its false pains and pleasures) is the graven image that we’re tempted to worship these days. In ancient times, statues were worshipped, while today statuesque bodies are often given the most thought, glory and worship. Our matter models may seem to be more logical preoccupations to accept, but to the degree that they distract us, and prevent us from recognizing God, Mind, as the only source of good, the only power, and the only life, truth, intelligence and substance, these modern material idols are equally important to destroy.
[Kathy continues:] “I wasn’t familiar with the story about idolatry that we have in this section from I Kings, chapter 13. At a festival in Bethel, where Israel’s idolatry had begun, King Jeroboam was making a sacrifice to golden calves he had set up. An unnamed prophet appeared and declared that the altar would be broken and the ashes spilled — total destruction. When King Jeroboam heard this, he reached out to have the prophet arrested. As he did, not only did the altar break and the ashes spill, but Jeroboam’s arm and hand were paralyzed. In his desperation, the king begged for his arm to be healed by the prophet’s God. His prayer was answered. His arm was healed. (cit. B8, I Kings 13:1,3-6). Unfortunately, the king and the people did not give up their idolatrous ways. It would be in excess of another 300 years before Israel would completely turn from their idol worship.
“So, what does all of this have to do with us? One thing that came to me is that we need to be sure we’re not just turning to God when we’re in trouble and looking for comfort in matter — and then after the healing, quickly turn back to our old patterns of thought, as King Jeroboam did. It also occurred to me that we can think of the total destruction of the altar as leaving no place in thought for the mental ashes of belief in, or fear of, matter to abide. Citation S11 defines matter as, “the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind” (SH p.114:23). Matter isn’t something outside of thought. This means that as thought changes, the outward expression of that thought — the material condition, so called — must also change. The goal is to shift our perspective (turn from the dark to the light, from the distorted view to the accurate) to see and experience the reality of God’s infinite, limitless creation that is ever-present. As we read further in the textbook, “You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. You should banish all thoughts of disease and sin and of other beliefs included in matter” (cit. S12, 208:25-2).
“Our deep desire should be to totally give up faith in matter (the idol of today), and to constantly turn to God for direction in all things. This is the goal. We do our best to achieve it. And, so I find this statement from Science and Health encouraging: “…the human self must be evangelized [that is, converted]. This task God demands us to accept lovingly to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 254:19). Love meets every need — always. Our job is to watch thought and do the best we can to trust God, and refuse to make a god of (be afraid of or honor) matter’s false presentations that parade in front of us. Let the altars of all matter models be destroyed and the ashes be poured out!”
[Warren (Moses) :] “During this coming Spring Break week, “Moses” and other characters will be at CedarS Bible Lands Park to help over 30 students, pledge to be the best versions of themselves, free of mental bondage and limits, by keeping a spiritual sense of each Commandment. (See the second & third Download, and consider eliminating these 10 limits/fables so as to be the most free version of themselves. These limits (and other written-in ones are only fables (like chaff) that the FAN separates from “the finest of wheat” in us as described in the baptism of “the Holy Ghost and fire” (Matthew 3:12) as well as in my middle response to John on page 5 of the first Download at the bottom of the online version of these GEMs AND in a video version with Moses at Bible Lands Park about 90+ minutes into the YouTube version of the 2022 AW Annual Meeting.
LET YOUR TRUE I.D. SPARKLE IN SONG! PRAY IT IN SONG WITH LIGHT-HEARTED, HEALING JOY! Cobbey insights on Psalm 30:2-5 (citation B10)
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Psalm 30:2 Again, the appointment with the physician, the Great Physician, in the Bible is very often this, “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee.” It does not take our being attuned to God to make the appointment. Just as the Prodigal Son suddenly decided that his really right place was not in that pig pen when he came to himself [Luke 15: 16-18]. There’s a whole new view of one’s identity. He decided that his father’s house held much more. Then you notice the father did not go to the man with the swine to save the son. The son had to do something. Then, the father ran to meet him as he was coming [Luke 15:20].
“With your back to the Father, you’re not even heading in that direction. With your face toward the Father you’re looking at the Father’s face, which is part of the cure biblically, [that] is to see the divine nature. Then of course, you want to be nearer the source of your nature. Step by step the light grows brighter around your feet. We know where we’re heading. We may not have arrived yet, but it’s getting brighter, and lighter, and our problems are dropping away, our burdens, and the divine nature is becoming applicable nearer and nearer. “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee; you have healed me.”
“One of our modern hymns [#425] has been made out of verse 5, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy [cometh] in the morning.” That word “joy” in the Hebrew is “singing.” Take weeping as the symptom and notice singing is the remedy. Sing, do we do much singing? It doesn’t have to be even with an audible or perceptible sound. It’s in our hearts, the song…. All the things that Jesus mentioned. They have to make room for the joy. It’s fullness of joy. It’s God’s dosage. Everything else has to be eliminated, removed, uncontained. That’s quite a prescription for depression, adversity. It seems difficult to SING in a trial, in a crisis. The Bible is just saying, “Try it, you might like it!”** [Laughter] Because it might solve [any and all issues].
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
FOR FREEDOM KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT ALL LIES — EVEN AN 18-YEAR OLD ONE! Cobbey Crisler insight on citation B12/ Luke 13:11-17:
[Cobbey:] “A woman with spinal difficulty is in a synagogue. Notice that Luke doesn’t say she has an infirmity. Luke, who is reputed to have been a physician, doesn’t even diagnose it as an infirmity but as a ‘spirit of infirmity,’ a sense of infirmity, a concept, a spirit, a thought. ‘She was bowed together. She couldn’t lift up herself.’
Verse 12. Jesus comes and announces to womanhood something that could be applicable in many ways, not just this one time. ‘Woman, you are free from thine infirmity.’ Verse 13. ‘She’s made straight and glorifies God.’
Verse 14. (& beyond, outside the Lesson) Incredible, ‘the ruler of the synagogue’ in which this grand healing and correction in thought occurred ‘answered with indignation’.
Jesus’ explanation about the cause of disease is Verse 16. No longer should there be any room in Christian thought that disease stems from God or is God’s will when Jesus attributes it directly to anything that would oppose God. Only what would oppose God could impose something on man that God Himself never created in His whole man. Is this a new theology? Satan and disease linked, and not God as the cause of loss, or pain, or sickness?
Because if it is, Jesus defines Satan as a liar in John (8:44). Satan has bound this woman with an infirmity that has her bent over, and has accomplished this for 18 years (Luke 13:16). And Satan is ‘a liar and the father of it.’ Satan’s works must be lies as well. If they are, they can be corrected mentally, by a full recognition of what is true. Notice that Satan does the binding. Jesus said (John 8:32), ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’
It’s a contest between the truth and the lie about God and His theology, about man, about woman, about children and about disease. If Satan is a liar, he will never change his character. Our idea of God may have gone haywire, but God has never moved.”
“The Gospels, Volume Three, Luke the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE FLESH AS THE CONTAINER OF YOUR INDIVIDUALITY!
Freedom from the flesh is Paul’s postlude to cit. B13, Romans 8:5-9+
“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. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6, KJV)
[Warren] The Contemporary English Version (CEV) translates this citation as “People who are ruled by their desires think only of themselves. Everyone who is ruled by the Holy Spirit thinks about spiritual things. If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace.”
[Warren] The Living Bible (TLB) renders these verses: “Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves, but those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that please God. 6 Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death.”
Cobbey Crisler writes about how Paul continues to develop this theme in Romans 8:9
[Cobbey:] on Romans 8:9 “How many auditoriums would empty in ridicule if Paul stood before them today and announced, “You are not in the flesh”? That’s an invitation to laughter, isn’t it? “You are not in the flesh,” Paul said. Flesh is not the container, then, of our individuality. We [are encouraged to think that] we are [our bodies]. We’re proud of that “fact”. We have turned the glory into shame by thinking out from the basis of flesh. We suffer from the incurred problems of an evolution that traces itself back through dust-like levels, so that heredity becomes a problem in health. We take pride in those “designer-genes” that form our genetic code.
“In the Bible it’s a case of choosing between Genesis or genetics. Genesis (1:1, 25) has us in the beginning created by God with dominion and in God’s image. So, flesh cannot be part of that image. Where are we seeing ourselves? “Adam, where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9)
“Where are we instead of in the flesh according to Romans 8, Verse 9? We’re “in the spirit” That’s home, then. Do we really feel at home in the Spirit? To be inspired is to have Spirit within, literally, in Latin. Do we enjoy living in an inspired state? Everything else moves aside. Everything is subordinated to that inspiration. “we’re in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us.” …
Romans 8:14, 16 (postlude bonus to cit. B8, NIV)
(More of Cobbey’s bonus verses from Romans 8)
“In Verse 19 would you agree with Paul that “the earnest expectation of the whole human race is waiting for this manifestation of the sons of God”? That it could be manifested, this sense of glory?
“Verse 21 mentions “the creature itself.” Look what is going to happen to the human body as the result of the evangelization of our mentality. As our mentality becomes more and more like God, the human body, “the creature itself, also shall be delivered.” There’s freedom, freedom from “every ill that flesh is heir to,” as Shakespeare says. “Delivered from the slavery,” literally in Greek, “the bondage of corruption,” “the slavery of decay into,” literally, “the freedom of the children of God.” The divine mode of being, as one dictionary says glory is, “into the freedom of the glory of the divine mode of being, of the divine nature, of the radiant thought of the children of God.”
“If (only) all our thoughts could be at the level of such radiance. We’ve seen light come out from a human expression. We’ve met people who radiate a sense of insight… That’s in the fleshly. That’s simply an outward manifestation of what’s going on within. More should be going on within. And we’re spending most of our time trying to dress the without.”
“Glory: Divine Nature in The Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
To WIN “MAINTAIN the FACTS of Christian Science…with…UNSHAKEN understanding…”(cit. S18/417)
Kerry Jenkins’ Case History of a dog sled accident healed—an INNOCENT verdict in the Court of Spirit!
In Science & Health, Mary Baker Eddy lays down this law demonstrated in her many cases of healing: “Maintain the facts of Christian Science, that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win.” (cit. S20/417:10-16)
CedarS Met contributor, Kerry Jenkins, CS, gives a case study precedent of applying this spiritual law:
“I had a really wonderful example of how this spiritual law is the only true law, when I was involved in a dog sledding accident. I was tucked into the sled and my husband, Doug, was driving. We were really flying down a narrow trail between spruce trees. Things got a bit sideways and the sled flipped and came to a stop with my face between the trunk of a tree and the steering bow of the sled. The injury seemed pretty severe. But I remember deciding that I was going to do just what it said in the above quote and “Maintain the facts of Christian Science…”. I decided not to even look in a mirror when I got home.
“I couldn’t see out of one eye, but continued to maintain my sense of peace that there could be no accidents in a universe governed by Mind—no collisions in a universe of Spirit. By the second day I could see clearly once again. I didn’t look at my face until three days later, just kept it clean and covered. When I got a glimpse, I had to laugh at the very vibrant colors mixed with a few remaining abrasions. By the next evening, when I was to sing in a concert, there was no sign whatsoever that anything had happened only four days before. I felt so embraced by this spiritual law of Love! There was no question that this healing was the result of an awareness of the supremacy of spiritual law.” [Kerry first shared this after Section 4 in her CedarS Met on the Christian Science Bible Lesson for “Spirit” for August 9, 2020.]
SEE YOURSELF AS SPIRIT GOD’S “SPITTIN’ IMAGE” AS THE SHEPHERDS SAW JESUS & ACTED ON THEIR INSPIRATION. Cobbey Crisler on Luke 2:40 cit. S31, 264 & cit. S32, 261
[Cobbey:] “Right here in this small city of David a sign, (Verse 11), an unmistakably unique sign. First a virgin will conceive, (Verse 12), then a heavenly anthem or symphony ends the angelic message to the shepherds, (Verses l3 and 14). The shepherds do something with the Holy Ghost with which they have been filled. They respond; they obey. They utilize what they have been inspired to do. They go to Bethlehem, (Verse 15), “find the babe lying in a manger,” (Verse 16), and “spread the news around,’
(Verse 17) so that the story was available among others. We don’t know where Luke would have gotten it. But that gives us certainly sufficient justification to see that it was known more than by a handful.
Mary, in verse 19, saw the shepherds appearing from nowhere telling her about the angelic messages (of “good tidings, great joy, all people’) that they received, “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
“We’re told in Verse 40 that ‘The child grew and waxed strong in spirit.’ The next thing and the last thing we know and learn about Jesus in the infancy period concludes chapter 2. Jesus is in the temple discussing with those rabbis who were schooled in every literal word of the law. We find in Verse 46 that Jesus was not only listening to them, but he is asking them questions. That is the rabbinical method. Rabbis did that among themselves. They did that with their students. For them to hear a twelve-year old boy utilizing the rabbinical method, brilliantly dealing with Scriptural exegesis, must have fascinated them to say the least. For three days this phenomenon was observed…”
[Warren: Jesus’ divine intelligence demonstrated in his brilliant use of the rabbinical method with the rabbis at age 12, reminds us of what’s possible to us when we admit to ourselves, as Jesus did, that we are God’s own likeness. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in the final citation of this section: “The admission to one’s self that man is God’s own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea.” (Science & Health 90:24–25, cit. S20)]
“Luke the Researcher”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
