Bible-based GEMs release us from mental & physical bondage to all of UNREALITY’s false claims on us!
GEMs = God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you to sparkle brightly with insights of “what to say No! to” &”what to say TES! to”/last GEM
from Cobbey Crisler & others as inspired by God and
The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“UNREALITY”
for Sunday, October 1, 2023
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps• 314-378-2574
[W.] “The theme of retaining our God-given freedoms by keeping the 10 Commandments is woven through this “Unreality” Bible Lesson from beginning to end. It shows us the dangers of thinking most about, and so worshiping, unreal, worldly obsessions that could never be capable of doing God’s job of providing us with all we need.
The Golden Text, Responsive Reading and each section reveal how to defend our thinking and so be the best version of who God created us to be as the divine “image and likeness” of Genesis 1. Friendly advice from Chapter 2 in I Peter is featured in the Golden Text and Responsive Reading. Here’s how the author urges us to resist worldly urges that would rob us of our God-given peace, dominion and freedom.
“Dear friends, since you are immigrants and strangers in the world, I urge that you avoid worldly desires that wage war
against your lives.” (Golden Text, I Peter 2::11, Common English Bible)
The Responsive Reading continues with advice from chapter 2 in I Peter on how to keep our freedom and covenant as God’s chosen people and take action to stop being unloving to God and our fellow man and so breaking the 10 Commandments:
1 “So put aside every trace of malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander and hateful speech; 2 like newborn babies [you should] long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may be nurtured and grow in respect to salvation [its ultimate fulfillment], 3 if in fact you have [already] tasted the goodness and gracious kindness of the Lord…
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a [special] people for God’s own possession,
so that you may proclaim the excellencies [the wonderful deeds and virtues and perfections] of Him who called you
out of darkness into His marvelous light… 11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from
the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul. (I Peter 2:1–3, 5, 9–11, 21, 22, 25, the Amplified® Bible)
Citations in subsequent sections amplify our 10 Commandments/Moses connections and the need to not give up our God-given freedom and become enslaved to the deceitful material senses:
“He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” (cit. B4/Ps. 103:7)
“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 6 O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker… 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is
a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:” (cit. B5/Ps. 95:3, 8–10)
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” (cit. B6/Romans 6:16–18)
from Science & Health:
“Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which baptized these seers in
the divine nature, the essence of Love.” (cit. S5 /333:19–26
“I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them, rather than Mind. The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged. I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mortals are taught their right to freedom, so the claims of the enslaving senses must be denied and superseded.” (cit. S8/226:22–7)
“But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” (cit. B10/James 3: 14–17)
“The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled
your body, and defaced the tablet of your being.” (cit. S24/227:26)
STOP WASTING TIME THINKING MOST ABOUT FOOD & CLOTHES WHEN BY SEEKING GOD 1ST THESE ITEMS WILL BE NATURALLY “ADDED” TO YOU, AS WILL ALL YOU NEED. Practice Jesus’ tips for controlling thought. Cobbey on that & on the “heavenly mathematics” in Matthew 6:25, 33/cit. B13)
(Cobbey Crisler insights on Matt. 6:25/cit. B15) “Now Jesus is going to show us how to control our thinking better than we have been able to thus far. This is the first of several verses which begin ‘Take no thought’ or utilizing that concept.
“Let’s determine just what thought-taking is. Does it mean to be thoughtless? Thought-taking is the way Jesus is using this in context. It’s anxiety, it’s care, its concern. Alright, let’s ask ourselves how we do in this test.
‘Take no thought for your life, what you are going to eat, drink, or wear.’ How much time do we give in any day to those three objectives, eating, drinking, wearing? Then Jesus said, ‘Do you know what? It’s not the menu that counts so much as your life which is bigger than what you’re eating, and your body, or identity, much bigger than what you wear.’
…
(Matt. 6:33/cit. B15) And then Jesus gives the priority equation, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” In other words, is what we eat, drink or wear of no significance? They are natural and normal on earth. He’s not wiping them all out as if it were a branch of some ascetic cult. But rather, ‘Seek God first and all these things will be added.’ Added. The heavenly law of mathematics is priority first and all those that we would normally take thought of would come into our experience naturally. Instead of wasting so much good mental time, taking thought, worrying, and being anxious, we spend that same time seeking the kingdom of God, and all those things come naturally as a result of that.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DEMONSTRATE HEALING AT A DISTANCE LIKE JESUS DID IN HIS POWER-PACKED FEELING LOVE’S EVER-PRESENCE. Cobbey on Jesus healing paralysis remotely (Matthew 8:5-13/cit. B15):
[Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 8, verse 5) “The second healing in this chapter is the centurion’s servant. This is a healing of palsy. Palsy is paralysis. This healing occurs over a distance. It’s almost as if Jesus were saying to the physical scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “Alright, gentlemen, you say in your list of things that represent action-at-a-distance, there can be light, magnetism, sound, and electricity.”
“Recognize that prayer is also action-at-a-distance and can out-distance all on your list. You do not have to be present physically to heal the sick. God is present with the one in need of healing as he is present with the one who is the channel for the healing or transparency.
You don’t have to move physically to heal spiritually. This is a tremendous breakthrough in a concept for healing which can occur even today, when it is considered that one must be at the bedside of a patient in order to accomplish anything. Jesus did not do that in every case. Remote healings required receptivity in the thought of those with whom he was dealing.
Here we have a centurion, who was not even a Jew. He is a Roman, a noncom officer in a sense over a hundred men. That’s why he’s called a centurion. He has enough concept of authority to say, “All you have to do, Jesus, if you’re good at what you’re doing, and a professional, just say, ‘Give the order,’ and those orders will be obeyed. That’s what happens in my profession,” he said.
(Verse 10) Jesus makes the comment that he has not “found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” One wonders if he would find that kind of faith today?
(Verse 13). He says “to the centurion, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.” We get a better view of it in the gospel of John [4:46-53], if it’s the same incident which it undoubtedly is, where the nobleman’s son is healed. The nobleman goes back home to check.
It’s a day’s travel. He’s half way there and his servants have come to meet him. His servants say; “Everything’s fine.” The nobleman said, “What time?” And the servant said, “The seventh hour.” So, the nobleman asked about the time and it was the same hour that Jesus had said, “Go thy way. Thy son liveth.”
It’s a day’s travel for the centurion. He’s halfway home and his servant have come to meet him. … The healing got to the centurion’s home before the centurion got there. Which shows what is possible and how primitive we are in exercising the spiritual forces available to us. It may turn out that Jesus is the most important scientist in the history of the world in the sense of demonstrating his theory and proving it.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren’s application idea for YOU and all you love: Please join us for CedarS monthly Sunday Hymn Sings to celebrate the ever-presence of divine Love and its healing power of prayer-at-a-distance)!” This breakthrough principle of the healing power of childlike thought that is receptive to remote prayer is on full display at CedarS monthly Hymn Sings at 7pm (Central Time) on Sunday, OCTOBER 8 and thereafter again on the first Sunday of each month. These 30-minute global gatherings could be thought of as “Prayer Sings,” since hymns are really healing prayers set to music.]
