“All-things-are-possible-to-God” GEMs Loved & Lived!
Sunday, July 2nd, 2023
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
Click here to print PDF version
“All-things-are-possible-to-God” GEMs Loved & Lived!
God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly in this PARTIAL SHARING of insights from Cobbey Crisler & others
as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“God”
for Sunday, July 2, 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
**See details in **P.S. about your being invited to our virtual Freedom Celebration hymn sing TONIGHT, Sunday, July 2nd, at 7:30pm Central.
ELEVATE ALL YOU DO! MAKE DIVINELY-DIRECTED ADAPTATIONS and RECEIVE HUMANLY-IMPOSSIBLE BESTOWALS! SEE *APPLICATION EXAMPLE*
[Warren & Geith Plimmer, CS on Science & Health 12:31 (citation S5)
[Warren Huff:] “I’ll always remember something that Geith Plimmer, a Christian Science Lecturer living in Great Britain, said about part of citation S5; “Love is impartial and universal in its adaptations and bestowals.” (SH 13:2-3) Geith commented that “one will be ready to receive divine bestowals only when ready to make divinely-directed adaptations.” Humility and love are the keys to open up a willingness to let “Thy will be done” and to make right changes and appropriate adaptations to humanly-willful or outlined plans.
We are blessed as students of the Bible to know that no mistakes can really be made when we love God with all our hearts and put all we do in his hands. As Saint Paul declares, “And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28, caps & emphasis added)
*APPLICATION “TESTING-TIME” EXAMPLE* as written on page 6 of excerpts from AW_Warren-Huff-Talk_4.22.pdf (ardenwood.org) and in the last 20 minutes of this YouTube video of Warren’s inspirational talk for Arden Wood’s 2022 Annual Meeting:] “There was a time in CedarS past when it looked like a big mistake was made by CedarS to be maintaining a property in west St. Louis County and operating an after school and day care unsustainable program there when camp was not operating. It was in an old, high-maintenance stone house built in 1818 on 8-acres that adjoined Queeny Park and was bought during a high inflation period where interest rates could not he secured for more than 6 months and they had jumped to 20%. We were spending unsustainable funds to own and maintain that property and the anticipated demand was high on some days and very low on most other days. To make a long and detailed story shorter, our Board prayed with several ideas and adaptations to make this program and property sustainable and fitting with Mary Baker Eddy’s guidance in the Church Manual “God’s Requirement. Sect. 5. God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist.” (Man. 77:18)
With the perspective of the wisdom that “sees that past through wisdom’s eyes” it was a “blessing in disguise” as Desiree Goyette wrote in her solo “Let it Go.” What enables us to have the “grace to go forward wherever he guide thee” and gladly obey the call of his word” (that was from Hymn which was CedarS 2021 theme as it was for TMC and Principia.) Another comfort that gave us the grace, strength and courage to sell the house was thinking of the conversation between Jacob and the angel he wrestled with. Jacob’s provision for letting the angel go became ours for letting the property go (that we had registered as an historic landmark) “And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. …
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” (Gen. 32:26, 28)…
…. So we put this treasured, historic property “on the altar” and asked what was right for us to do. We filed for the house to be listed as a historic landmark, and we sold the property, got out of our indebtedness, and were able to build Crown Lake and to install our waterslide! It was a landmark for CedarS—a real testing time for us. It was the right thing to let that property go and to let the new plans unfold that have blessed thousands of kids and families.”
GIVE YOUR ALL TO FIND UNENDING ABUNDANCE IN GOD!
See Ken Cooper’s offering (see online version Download below) to bring life to cit. B4.
Ken added: “The widow of Zarephath reminds me of Jesus’ observation when he saw a poor widow casting her two mites into the treasury, “she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.” Luke 21:4. When we give our all to God, we find true abundance, for then God shines through our lives, and we can bless everyone that is in the radius of that light. In such ways does God preserve all those under the shadow of His wings, and we become “angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:1-2).
The YouTube version of the poem can be found on https://youtu.be/GBAK6RfTPtA together with further comment under SHOW MORE. The full range of videos can be found on “Ken G Cooper Poetry You Tube” https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv6edwM4E2y4wJ98jGEPUOw
YouTube Bonus: “Trust God’s timing and you will see God’s provision.” Thus, concludes another Bible-study of I Kings 17 (citation B4) especially when it appears that God’s timing is off, as when Elijah asks the widow for food… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIIyf9IfEmI
Click to see a moving, 11-minute YouTube reenactment by Brigham Young University students at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwuKUHKKBw&t=143s
LIKE JESUS, HEAL BLINDNESS BY SHOWING CONTEMPT FOR A BELIEF IN A DNA-DUST MAN ORIGIN! WASH OFF EVERY TRACE OF FAITH IN MATTER-BASED IDENTITY & HEREDITY!
[W.] Cobbey’s insight on how Jesus healed the man born blind by transcending with spiritual understanding the disciple’s limited, belief-based multiple-choice question:
[Cobbey Crisler on John 9:2/cit. B8:]
“ The disciples ask Jesus “who did sin?
(A) This fellow over here? or
(B) his parents?”
“John 9:3. Jesus had that paper before him as in the examination room on that point many times before. “He says,
(C), none of the above… [Or, as Warren proposes as another right multiple-choice test answer (D) DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) (the molecule that supposedly carries encoded genetic instructions) Does Not Apply!)]
[Cobbey continues on his (C) answer:] “None of the above. Neither hath this man sinned or his parents.”
What’s that saying about origin? Where is that man? His roots are not in parents or in some reincarnated experience…”
Notice what he does in John 9:6 and what it may remind you of. “He spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle.” That reminds you of man being made of the dust in the Second Chapter of Genesis Verse 6 and 7, doesn’t it? Would Jesus ever [by spitting show disgust or contempt for or] mock God if he considered that was the real way that creation occurred? Yet, it almost looks like a mockery of that. He’s taking on that concept of the man of dust. He’s spitting on that ground, into the dust, making clay of it, and slapping it on the eyes of the blind man.
John 9:7. The man goes to the pool of Siloam. He can’t see his way there. He’s got mud all over his face. He doesn’t go seeing. He comes seeing.” He comes only after he has washed off that symbolic making or formation of man out of the dust.
In a way, it might even give us a greater hint on what the true meaning of baptism is, the immersion in Spirit, nativity, and washing off every trace of the dust man.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Check out a great reenactment of this healing to the end of the story (verse 41) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBo7ka3YZQ
[Warren: First read Mary Baker Eddy correlated insight: “Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear.” (SH 228:7)
Then, ask yourself what “dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills” are just lies about you, or those you love. Know then that all such “false evidence” is contemptible to Christ, because it’s based on false theories of origin in matter and beliefs of heredity with its limiting, multiple-choice, blame-game explanations.]
PRAY with POWERFUL GRATITUDE-in-ADVANCE as JESUS DID in getting news of illness & in RAISING LAZARUS! John 11:1-44/cit. B11 + Science & Health cits. S18/493:28-2, S17/75:12
[Warren: The Lazarus resurrection story is featured in the Section 4 citation B11/John 11:1-44. Cobbey’s insights below and another lifelike and tear-jerking reenactment of this event with proper, life-bringing word substitution of a Greek word “exhyp,nos” NOT to mean “Lazarus sleepeth—”exhyp,nos” but that “Lazareth has been hypnotized—”exhyp,nos”.
[Cobbey Crisler:] “In Chapter 11, note how Jesus handles news of a severe sickness.
“In John 11:3, “Jesus gets a message from Lazarus’ sisters that Lazarus is sick.”
In John 11:4, the first thing Jesus says is, “This sickness is not unto death.”
Remember that’s what he said about the man born blind in John 9:3, ” Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God might be manifest in him.” We find the same kind of approach to a patient with Jesus’ method of healing including that concept.
John 11:5, “He loved the family very much, the family of Bethany,”
John 11:6, “But he still remains for two days.”
Then in John 11:7, he says, “Let us go into Judea again.”
John 11:8, “His disciples say, What? Last time we were there we had to duck projectiles.”
Then in John 11:11, he says to the disciples, “Our friend . . . (see the shepherdmotive) Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” There are two Greek words for sleeping here. The first one is as if taking rest in sleep. The second one, “awake him out of sleep,” is the Greek word “exhyp,nos”. It includes within it the root of our word hypnotism. It has a suggestion of a trance-like, notnormally-induced sleep. It is interesting to see Jesus referring to death as a process of needing to be awakened from a trance.
John 11:12. His disciples misunderstand that whole thing and “they say, If he’s sleeping, leave him alone. He’s fine if he’s resting.”
John 11:13 shows how Jesus was using what we would call a euphemism. He avoided the word die, because he is seeing it differently.
In John 11:14, when, “they don’t comprehend him, he says very plainly, Lazarus is dead .”
John 11:16. Thomas doesn’t cover himself with glory every time he appears in the Scriptures. On the other hand, neither do we in our daily lives very often. I don’t think we should finger-point at Thomas. But Thomas does have somewhat of a note of sarcasm here when he says to his fellow disciples, “Alright, let’s go with him. Let’s go die with him if he’s going to Judea. ” This was something he was not that willing to do when the opportunity arose. As you recall, when they captured Jesus in Gethsemane, where did Thomas head with all the rest of them?
John 11:17, “When Jesus arrives, we find that four days Lazarus had been in the tomb.” He sees the scene that was so often associated with death, the hired mourners and the official mourners.
Martha appears in what I hope will always be a new light. We have a tendency to stereotype, even people we haven’t known. Martha has been labeled for centuries, “Don’t be a Martha.” Some people are sorry their name is Martha, because of that.
In John 11:25, it is only to Martha that Jesus ever makes the statement, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Since we know that Jesus only addressed the receptive thought, and since Martha is the only one to whom he felt free to say, “I am the resurrection,” it is somewhat of an honor to be named Martha from that point of view. …
John 11:33, “shows the weeping and the groaning that’s going on.”
John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible. It indicates Jesus’ humanity, “Jesus wept.”
John 11:36, “Behold how he loved him!”
John 11:37, “They asked, Could this man have prevented this incident?”
John 11:38, “Jesus comes to the cave.”
John 11:39, “And says, Take ye away the stone. At that point even Martha’s faith breaks down. It’s a hot country and a body in a tomb for four days and she so states.”
John 11:40, “Jesus,” supporting her continuing faith, “said, Didn’t I tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?” Thereby he continued to support the resurrection trust in womanhood.
John 11:41, “They took away the stone. Jesus lifts up his eyes, and makes a pronouncement that what he desires through prayer has already been accomplished. I thank thee that thou hast heard me.”
John 11:42, “And I knew that thou hearest me always. That’s a remarkable statement of Jesus’ theology.
Here’s what the Anchor Bible says: “The prayer of petition is not the only form of prayer. If prayer is a form of union with God, then the Johannine (John’s Gospel) Jesus is always praying, for he and the Father are one.”
1 John 5:14 is another work attributed to the beloved disciple and one of the most beautiful views and definitions of prayer. It comes through the transparency of this thought that was so close to Jesus. Check your prayer against this measurement.
Here is the “Bureau of Standards” on prayer, “This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.” Notice the qualification. It is not according to our will. It is totally selfless.
1 John 5:15. But that’s not all, “If we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” That’s prayer of affirmation coming through there.
In John 11:42, isn’t that exactly what Jesus said, “I know that thou hearest me always. If we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions. “It is important to examine how our prayers measure against that standard. We find Jesus expressing gratitude before the event.
John 11:43. Then he says, “Lazarus, come forth.” Obviously, he wouldn’t yell if he didn’t think Lazarus could hear. You notice he’s communicating with a so-called dead man, expecting him to be able to hear, using one of the faculties that was supposedly shut off. At the point of death, he doesn’t regard it as shut off.
John 11:44, “Lazarus comes forth,” very awkwardly, I may add, but nothing could keep him from answering that demand. As a matter of fact, if you have been through the traditional tomb of Lazarus in Bethany, I consider it much more of a miracle that he ever emerged from the tomb, let alone being raised from the dead. I’m quite sure he would have bumped his head several times on his way out.
There’s another part of the healing that’s necessary. “Jesus turns to those around him, “the environment, holding him in this grave, “and says, ‘Loose him, and let him go.‘” There is a sense of freedom which is so important. Remember what he says to a woman in another gospel, Luke 13:12, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”
John 11:46, Guess what? With the marvelous raising of Lazarus from the dead, there are informers. Rather than spreading the good news, they have to go report. “They went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.”
John 11:47, “That’s when they have a meeting about him.”
John 11:54 “And Jesus can no more walk openly; but goes north into a wilderness,” staying out of reach temporarily.
Chapter 12:1 begins where he revisits “Bethany.”
John 12:2, “Lazarus, Mary, and Martha there, Lazarus eating supper with them.”
John 12:9 shows that, “a crowd begins to assemble. They hear that not only Jesus is there but Lazarus is a co-celeb. ” Bethany is only about a mile and a quarter from Jerusalem, so all of Jerusalem has been aware of this raising of the dead in their vicinity. “So people are coming to see Lazarus.”
In John 12:10, look at “what the chief priests are consulting about.” Lazarus has just gotten out of the tomb and they want to stuff him back in! Because he was really walking evidence of God’s word.
Here comes what’s been called Palm Sunday and we find the general populace greeting him, even the children in other gospel accounts (Matthew 21:9, 15).
John 12:13, “Calling him the King of Israel, Hosanna,” all Messianic terms, in recognition of Jesus’ Messianic roles.
John 12:14, “When Jesus chooses a young ass to ride into Jerusalem.” Dr. Bull makes an interesting point here, he says, “Nowhere else are we told in the gospel that Jesus rides anywhere. The presumption is that he walks. But here, very close to Jerusalem, where the walk isn’t that long, he makes a point of having a special form of transportation. It so happens that, although I’ve not seen this in any book, we are faced with another Messianic symbol. When Solomon was anointed king, that’s the way he came into Jerusalem, on the back of David’s mule. It also has to do with prophesy in Zechariah 9:9 where it talks about, “the king comes to Zion sitting on an ass’s colt.” The disciples don’t understand that until much later…”
“The Book of John, the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren: Why not joyously and gratefully accept as your own the Holy Spirit of this healing feeling?! It can be your daily/nightly springboard to try for yourself the proven Christ-method of “trading in your sorrow…for the joy of the Lord.” Here are the words to a moving and popular Christian song with its many YouTube versions, like this one by Jeremy Camp as sung by Darrell Evans with the lyrics to sing along with. Let your life sing for God by trading in your sickness, your covid, your blindness, your dying… “for the joy of the Lord!” Why not trade in being a mere mortal for being an Immortal, the ever-new, best version of the true you! – a perfect and one-of-a-kind expression of God!
P.S. BONUS HISTORY of a Ruth E. Huff reenacting the raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11/cit. B13)
“Nana Ruth,” CedarS Camps Founder, had already been on two trips to Israel with Janet and Cobbey Crisler. She loved these trips and learned so much each time that she wanted to go for a third time. But, she’d made a commitment to speak at a meeting of the National American Camp Association about the benefits and logistics of operating camps with 1 week and 2-week sessions. So, she arranged with the Crislers to arrive as soon as she could join them join them after the convention which was in Boston that year. The day that Nana Ruth was able to join the group was when they were to come to Lazarus tomb at Bethany. Ruth ask Cobbey if she might do a bit of a fun reenactment and have him call out loudly “Lazarus, come forth!” at which point she would hop out of the tomb, wrapped in a sheet from the hotel. The timing and all worked perfectly. When she appeared on-call, 30-some jaws dropped and laughter erupted soon as Ruth unwrapped herself.
In this humorous way, Ruth (unknowingly) started a fun CedarS (and Huff family) tradition of reenacting Bible events in memorable and meaningful ways. After all, she was a self-described “scribe under orders” when she wrote CedarS Five Fun-damental Concepts which fittingly end with:
“5. We expect to make camping at CedarS FUN!”
Other, meaningful parts of the stop at Lazarus’ tomb that day, no doubt featured Cobbey’s insights elaborated above that include Jesus’ expectancy of a good outcome from every “valley of the shadow of death.” Jesus stated aloud and modeled for us the “One in the asking, one in the proof” (Hymn 524:3) confidence the Christian healing method of giving gratitude to God in ADVANCE! “Nana Ruth” echoed this in her own fun way every time she gratefully responded to a challenge by saying with “laughing eyes” and a smile: “It will be fun to see how God works this one out!”
Cobbey, Nana, Madelon Maupin, Barry Huff and all great Bible scholars and Sunday School teachers bring applicable closure and meaning to each event or citation by asking not only what does it mean, but WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ME AND TO EVENTS OF THE DAY.
APPLY “HIGHER-MATH” DIVINE EQUATIONS from OUR TEXTBOOK to YOURSELF TO ACCEPT THAT NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO YOU AS THIS BIBLE LESSON ILLUSTRATES!
One-line, word equations in Science & Health (SH) are “textbook” illustrations of the “Transitive Property of Equality.” tHEY REVEAL TO US THAT SINCE NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO gOD, SO NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAN AS gOD’S EXPRESSION. (www.mathwords.com) (See page 470:23, 481:3/citation S19, 477:26 and 249:31)
Let’s “do the math”— the Higher Math – with simple, word-equation sentences from Science & Health.
On SH p. 470:23 the first word-equation sentence states:
“Man (A) is (=) the expression of God’s being.” (B)
On SH p. 481:23, citation S19, the second word-equation sentence states:
“God’s being (B) is (=) infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss.” (C)
[In a Download at the bottom of the online version of these GEMs you can see these precious four elements of who we are as God’s expression carved in 12-inch tall letters at the launch platform of CedarS Cable Ski Park. They are being more fully expressed daily this week by all campers, and especially by the boys enrolled in Cable Ski Camp this session.]
By the Transitive Property of Equality: If A = B and B = C, then A = C
So, “Man (A) or YOU (a) is (=) the expression of infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss.” (C)
Extending the Transitive Property of Equality to two more word-equation sentences in this week’s lesson:
On SH p. 477:26 (right after citation S1 this week), the third word-equation sentence states:
“Man (A) [or YOU (a)] is (=) the expression of Soul.” (D)
On SH p. 249:31 the fourth word-equation:
“Man (A) [or YOU (a)] is (=) the reflection of Soul.” (E)
So, since A = C and A = D, then C = D [And, C = both D and E as amplified below]
OR
“The expression of infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss” (C) (=) “the expression of Soul.” (D)
“The expression of infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss” (C) (=) “the reflection of Soul.” (E)
Therefore, You (a), like the “Energizer Bunny,” express the synonyms for Infinity including: inexhaustibility, eternity, limitlessness, immeasurability, perpetuity (See https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/rodule )
Therefore, You (a), like the Statue of Liberty, express the synonyms for freedom including: opportunity, power, ability, exemption, flexibility, immunity, privilege, right, discretion, facility, leeway, liberty, prerogative, range, scope, unrestraint, carte blanche, elbowroom, free rein, full play, full swing, plenty of rope
Therefore, You (a), like a Band, Chorus, Cabin or Family member, express the synonyms for harmony including: cooperation, friendship, consistency, good will, kinship, peace, rapport, tranquility, unanimity, understanding, unity, accord, amicability, compatibility, concord, like-mindedness
Therefore, You (a), like a Happy, Peace-filled, Stress-free Reflection, express the synonyms for boundless bliss including: unchangeable blessedness, inexhaustible happiness, unlimited gladness, untold joy…
The reign of “infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss” means that, as God’s expression, nothing is impossible to you! “Infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss”naturally and automatically rule out of you all their opposites (antonyms) of limitation; restraint, restriction, slavery; Inharmony, Strife, disagreement, discord, fighting; depression, sadness, sorrow, unhappiness, grief, upset…
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