“An increasing sense of God’s love, omnipresence and omnipotence enfolds” YOU! (My. 174:26)
Lesson Application ideas on “GOD” for June 28-July 4, 2004 by Julie Ward, C.S. (Westwood, Massachusetts)
Life’s great question – how can we love God more? Understand Him, acknowledge, obey, serve, and praise Him. “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”
GOLDEN TEXT – He is the All and Only, now and forever. His is the glory, majesty, dominion, and power. Amen! (“Amen” is from the Hebrew verb, ‘to take care, to support, to be firm, true, reliable, to believe in.” As an exclamation, it can mean, “Truly!” or “Surely!”)
RESPONSIVE READING – a joyful celebration of God’s eternal victory. He leads us home, plants us firmly in our right place. He reigns “for ever and ever.” No contest! No wavering! Just the perfect stability of good,
SECTION I – What is God?
Here’s a question we should be asking ourselves continually. This week let’s try to stretch our concept of God every single day. One way to do this is to keep these questions alive in our hearts:
– Who is so great a God as our God?
– Who is God, save the Lord?
– Who is a rock, save our God/
– Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor?
He alone is the Source, the Action, the Communication, the Reason for it all!
This week, re-visit the seven synonyms as if you’ve never heard of them before. Ask yourself what each synonym is doing. For instance, Love is encouraging, supporting, embracing. Truth is uncovering, clarifying, stirring. What do you think the others are doing? And their activity is expressed as YOU! “Everything in God’s universe expresses Him.” That includes you, right here and now. Notice the ways that you express Him, and be grateful for them. “God is at once the center and circumference of being.” There’s no place left for anything else.SECTION II – God is ONE indivisible Good.
Here’s another great question to consider: “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.” God is the incomparable Holy ONE, the Adorable ONE. And we learn in Science and Health, “Principle and its idea is one.” This is no grammatical error. There can only be one ALL. “The allness of Deity is His oneness.”
SECTION III – Total obedience to God – nothing less!
Are you a Mary or a Martha? Martha certainly seemed the more conscientious sister, but Jesus said that “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Human goodness and human accomplishments can be taken away from us, but what we hear in prayer, “sitting at the feet of Jesus,” is with us forever. Are we like Martha, “cumbered about much serving”? Are we so busy that we forget to be still and listen for divine inspiration? “Divine Mind rightly demands man’s entire obedience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made for any lesser loyalty.”(SH11) But obedience has its rewards – “Obedience to Truth gives man power and strength” – and joy! If, like Mary, “divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to Spirit.” And isn’t that the real measure of healing?
SECTION IV – Don’t forget! Healing = understanding God.
We can’t be made to forget all of God’s “benefits” – the blessings that He gives to ALL of His children. He forgives ALL our iniquities. He heals ALL our diseases. No one is left out. Nothing is too hard. Jesus knew this. He went to ALL the cities and villages, healing “EVERY sickness and EVERY disease among the people.” (B14) When he healed the ten lepers, he didn’t worry about the fact that the disease was deemed incurable. He didn’t even worry that at least one of the men was a Samaritan. They had to be obedient to his command to go to the temple to be cleansed, and “AS THEY WENT they were cleansed.” When we hear the Christ telling us to go forward, do we trust that we’ll be healed as we go? The tenth leper didn’t forget. He didn’t forget to acknowledge “the divine Principle which had healed him.” We won’t forget, either. And what will we remember? “We should remember that Life is God, and God is omnipotent.”(SH19)
SECTION V – God is not mysterious, but completely knowable.
When Paul went to Athens, he was met by the skepticism of the Epicureans and Stoics. Can’t you just hear the disdain in their voices as they asked, “What will this babbler say?” But this “babbler” cut straight to the chase! He rebuked the “ignorant worship” of the “unknown God.” He explained that the one God is knowable – not the hypothetical God of human opinions, not the political deity who changed from nation to nation. And here’s the great news about this great and only God: “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Compare this with Mrs. Eddy’s statement in Ret. 93: 17)
And here is yet another promise about this great, knowable God: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”(B19) In the oneness of God there are no ideas at cross-purposes. No right idea interferes with any other idea in the whole universe. Do you think of yourself as “called according to His purpose?” You are. And what is that purpose? To glorify Him. Here are two more questions to consider
this week:
– If God be for us, who can be against us?
– How can there be more than all?
Here are two terms you’ll want to know:
Agnosticism – (theology) A theory that does not deny God, but denies the possibilityof knowing Him.
Pagan – one who has no religion (formerly, one who is not a Christian – from the Late Latin “civilian”, i.e., not a soldier of Christ).
SECTION VI – Alleluia! – God is with us!
“Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” What better way to live Christian Science than to live with the constant, joyful acknowledgment that God is all-powerful, ever-present, and that He is always with us. In His presence, there is no sorrow, no crying, no pain, for “the former things” (the false beliefs) “are passed away.” Give God the glory in all things. Wherever there claims to be lack (of comfort, of hope, of understanding, or even of supply) we can “rejoice in the affluence of our God.” (SH28)
Here’s a great summation of this lesson from My. 174:25-28: “To-day my soul can only sing and soar. An increasing sense of God’s love, omnipresence and omnipotence enfolds me. Each day I know Him nearer, love Him more, and humbly pray to serve Him better.”
