Enjoy a GEM of a LINK about giving a testimony! And many more Life Lessons
Monday, July 12th, 2021
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
Enjoy a GEM of a LINK about giving a testimony! And many more Life Lessons
GEMs from Cobbey Crisler and others from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Life”
for July 18, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
NOTE CORRECTED LINK BELOW FROM KATHY FITZER’S MET INTRODUCTION THIS WEEK TO A GREAT ARTICLE BY L. IVIMY GWALTER!
Kathy writes: “It is our Christly nature to see things through the lens of reality and not be disturbed by physical evidence. I found it enlightening to re-read the article, “The Activity of the Christ” by L. Ivimy Gwalter. Here is a link” (with an audio link too): https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/29no6303k3c?s=e
HOPE IN GOD (WHO ALONE CAN QUENCH THIRSTY SOULS) TO FIND
A SURE CURE TO DEPRESSION (& put an END to CONTINUAL TEARS & FEARS)!
[Warren on Psalm 42:2 (and verse 8, Golden Text) and Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 42:11, in (& after) citation B3]
[W: Psalm 42:2 starts with the psalmist acknowledging a thirst, lack, or seeming ‘hole in his soul.’ “… my soul panteth for thee O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God…” This is manifested in “tears… day and night…” and in questioning the existence of God— “Where is thy God?” (Verses 3 and 10)
[Cobbey: “Psalm 42, Verse 11 is a refrain in this psalm and the next. [Ps. 43.5] It’s a question we all need to ask ourselves, “Why art thou cast down?” Depression, if not an economic fact, seems to be a mental one at present. “Why art thou cast down? Examine the reasons. “Why art thou disquieted within me?” That’s getting mad in a sense. That’s challenging what we are accepting without question. Why am I depressed? Why is this disquiet? What’s the reason for it? Then notice the remedy. “Hope thou in God: praise God, hope in God. The health of our countenance is in God. “
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Cobbey: “Verse 11 [of Psalm 42] is the effect of that [enemy] thought [of questioning the existence of God in verse 10]. Our “soul is cast down,” our whole identity depressed, “disquieted.” Only “hope in God” restored will restore “the health of our countenance,” showing the physical effect of the mental cause.”
“War in Heaven: Conquest of Inner Space,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
FOR DOMINION, TREAT FEAR, NOT THE FLESH!
Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 56:4 (Responsive Reading)
“Speaking of fear, look at Psalm 56, Verse 4, “I will not fear what?” “What flesh can do unto me.” So, flesh isn’t the problem. But guess what is? Fear. It’s fearing what flesh can do unto me. Flesh is not the patient, then. One of the most radical discoveries in Biblical therapy: we’ve been treating the wrong patient. That’s not the problem in Biblical thought. [It] wants to be absent from the flesh, not even weigh it in, factor it in to Biblical healing. The flesh has naught to say, but completely submits to what the mental state dictates. That’s dominion.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BELIEVE IN BEING ABLE TO SEE EVER PRESENT SOLUTIONS HERE and NOW!
Cobbey Crisler on Psalms 27.13 (cit. B4):
“We all by application faint, fail, end up in that helplessness that world attitudes would weigh down such faith with. [“I had fainted], unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord,” not in some far-off destination, not in some promised heaven, but “in the land of the living,” right here and right now. There is a practical pharmacy with immediate sense of help, a realized solution, not simply a hoped-for solution.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from the Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
LET US all PLEDGE TO WIN WITHOUT A FIGHT, LIKE DANIEL DID in citation B5/Daniel 6:1-26
[Warren:] A few decades ago, I commissioned Larry Groce to write a song for CedarS about the Beatitudes to share in everyday language the principles of heavenly happiness. We are singing it four times this week with various cohorts in evening outings to CedarS Bible Lands Park (BLP). Since this week’s Lesson features Daniel’s demonstration of remaining calm and unharmed when he was thrown into a den of very hungry lions to spend the night with them, we are showing each BLP visitor this week portrayals of Daniel’s calm trust while in the lion’s den as illustrated in Briton Riviere prints that my mother, Ruth E. Huff, treasured. The Larry Groce Beatitude song for this one is: “Blessed are the peacemakers in this world, they win without a fight.”
With respect, creativity, firmness in the right, and a calm, understanding confidence in Love, peacemakers always seek to win without a fight!
- “Understanding the control that Love holds over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den and Paul proved the viper to be harmless.” (citation S7/514:26-28)
I ask BLP visitors to repeat after me: “Like Daniel, when I’m surrounded by strife and seeming enemies … I pledge to win without a fight… by “understanding the control that Love holds over all” … and by ‘think(ing) without strife.’” (a motto from the CedarS song)
We are also pointing out that the preparation of pausing before each activity at CedarS for a Met, or focus on God-centered goals and qualities, is one that Daniel, Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy did in their prayer practice. It’s a wonderful practice to take home for a lifetime of demonstrating the ever presence of infinite perfection.
When the strife, jealousy and hatred of his political enemies seemed most intense, the book of Daniel tells us that he responded by turning to God.
“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime” (Dan. 6:10).
Mary Baker Eddy wrote about her kneeling three times a day in Misc. Writings on page 133:22.
“Three times a day I retire to seek the divine blessing on the sick and sorrowing, with my face toward the Jerusalem of Love and Truth, in silent prayer to the Father which ‘seeth in secret’, and with childlike confidence that He will reward ‘openly’.
Even though Daniel’s prayer didn’t remove the challenge from his path, it did help him to maintain his thought in “the secret place” of knowing God’s complete control over all, so that he felt nothing but God and His presence and power. The aggressive barbs of the presidents and princes, and the fear, hatred, and animality of the lions found no foothold in his consciousness because it was filled with divine Love.
And so, Daniel was preserved. Plus, instead of harboring any resentment or anger against the king, Daniel said “O King, live for ever. . . before thee O King, have I done no hurt” (Dan 6:22). As Jesus said during his crucifixion, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), Daniel’s consciousness was also filled with love. The consciousness of nothing but love and forgiveness got Jesus off the cross and out of the tomb, and Daniel out of the lions’ den unharmed.
“Understanding the control that Love held over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den, and Paul proved the viper to be harmless.” Science & Health, Mary Baker Eddy, cit. S7/514:26-28
RADIATE YOUR UNDYING IDENTITY THAT’S FOREVER LOVED & BLESSED BY YOUR HEAVENLY DADDY (ABBA)!
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 17.1-9/cit. B7 and Jesus, Moses & Elias on the Mt. of Transfiguration
[Cobbey:] “Matthew, Chapter 17: There is a renewed opportunity for the disciples, three of them at least, to witness who Jesus was.
(Verse 1). “Peter, James, and John come to a high mountain apart,”
(Verse 2). “He was transfigured: his face did shine,”
(Verse 3). And there is a breakthrough here because “we find Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.” What is special about that is Moses really is the prime figure in the law, isn’t he? Elias is the prime figure in the prophets. So, in a way, it represents the three major sections of the Bible, long before it was sewn together in the backbone of a book.
We know what they were talking about, at least. The gospel of Luke (9:31) is the only one which tells us what the subject of conversation was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke tells us that they were discussing his “decease” which was forthcoming in Jerusalem. When J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67, U.S. nuclear physicist) wanted to talk with someone on his level, he probably wouldn’t give us a call. He’d go to look for Einstein.
If Jesus were approaching his meeting with the last enemy known as death, just look at Moses and Elias. What had Elias or Elijah accomplished? He had ascended, according to the Old Testament report 2 Kings 2:11. What about Moses? It doesn’t say exactly, but they never could find his body. They sent out expedition after expedition that came up empty handed. In fact, there is the intertestamental (the period between the close of the OLD TESTAMENT and the beginning of the NEW TESTAMENT) literature written called “The Assumption of Moses” where it has long been held in Jewish tradition that Moses had ascended. There is this common point of unity among those three men on that mountain.
Verse 9 (of Matthew 17). Our translation says, “Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.” I can’t find a Greek version that supports the word “again.” But if it is genuine, it implies that, in effect, Jesus had to rise from the dead to communicate to these men. He had to have overcome the death barrier.
The three disciples didn’t communicate with them, but they knew who they were. Isn’t that interesting? That says something about identity, our identity. The identity of Moses and Elias was apparently communicable. But there was no discussion back and forth between Peter, James, and John and those on the mountain. It’s sort of like television, isn’t it? You can tune in at a distance. You can see people on the screen who are thousands of miles from you. Maybe even bouncing off satellites. But you can’t communicate with them. Distance and time have been overcome and we can see but not communicate.
(Verse 4). They were bored there, Peter, James, and John. Peter tries to interrupt. Peter liked to feel busy. On the top of the mountain Jesus, Moses, and Elias had their thing going. So, he said, “It’s good for us to be here.” Really, the transfiguration didn’t need Peter’s endorsement. But he gave it. He said, ‘It’s good for us to be here. While you’re up there, why don’t we do something down here, instead of just sitting. We can build three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.”
Verse 5 is when the announcement comes once again very much like the baptism (Matthew 3:17) which is rooted in prophecy. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax-Collectors Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
HAVE A SPIRITUAL SENSE MIND-SET THAT WORKS LIKE CHRIST JESUS’ INVISIBILITY-CLOAK!
FIND IT NATURAL TO BE DIVINE! Cobbey Crisler on Colossians 3:2, 3, 4 (cit. B8)
(Colossians 3:2) Have you heard the modern expression mind-set? Verse 2 is almost that literally in Greek. “That our mind-set must be on things above.” Can we have an inner spiritual sense entertained that provides the divine reason for our being, even when we’re living on the earth at a human level if we “set our mind on things above, not on things of the earth”?
(Verse 3, citation B17) “For ye are dead.” That’s exactly what the body is. If we are to be absent from the body, the body itself is now dead to our thought and our thought no longer responds to it. No longer worships it. The Greek word means to be away from something, to be separated from. “And your life,” we haven’t lost anything then. “Our life is,” or literally, “has been hidden with Christ in God.” (Hymn 370)
(Verse 4,) “When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear,” what about us? “We also will appear.”
“We are joint heirs with Christ,” Paul says [in Romans 8:17], inheritors of the divine being. We are sharers, “partakers of the divine nature.” “We will appear with him,” How? “In glory.” In imperishable radiance. That’s not an abstraction. It is supersensible, but it’s concrete being. It’s a sharing of the glorious liberty of the children who find it natural to be divine.”
“Glory: Divine Nature in the Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
PRAY with POWERFUL GRATITUDE-in-ADVANCE LIKE JESUS DID when HE RAISED LAZARUS!
Cobbey Crisler on John 11:1-15, 18-44/cit. B9 (Plus Science & Health 75:13 (S19)
[Cobbey:] “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 also 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**
“ARISE, SHINE, for thy light has come” AS ONE WHO SERVES — TO GOD’S DELIGHT!
See the message from Isaiah 60:1 (citation B13) as embroidered in Hebrew as well as in English on a prayer shawl from Israel. It’s a message from God – meant for YOU today!
[See an online picture of my prayer shawl below, plus other insights by Cobbey Crisler from the book of Isaiah about the prophesied servant. [Isaiah 42:1, 7 and Isa. 61:1.]
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 42:1, in a prophesy of a servant who should come, the “elect of God” who would have “the Spirit of God upon him.” You will notice in Verse 7 (and Isaiah 61:1 what the assignment of this servant would be, “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
“Isn’t it interesting that the prophet Isaiah foresees this prophesied individual in the terms of “a servant” when the Greek word most often in the New Testament for healing has the classical Greek meaning of “to serve.” You remember how Jesus defined his ministry in those terms, “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister” [Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45]. Healing is serving by definition in Greek. Serving whom? God and man.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
