Editor’s Note: The following background information and application ideas for the Christian Science Bible Lesson for this week are offered primarily to help CedarS campers and staff (as well as friends) see and demonstrate the great value of daily study of the Christian Science Bible lessons year-round, not just at camp.
Money is never the treasure! … Know what is of permanent value (spiritual ideas) and use them at all times.
Application Ideas for the Bible Lesson on “Substance” (Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson for March 12, 2006)
by Corde Hanzlik, C.S., Austin, TX
The message of the Golden Text and Responsive Reading for the Substance Lesson could be boiled down to, “Know what is of permanent value (spiritual ideas) and use them at all times.” Then, no matter what, we’ll have everything, in abundance, always! Nothing can destroy it or take it away. We often get very busy with human planning for everything. We get so wrapped up in it that we are bound by it, literally. So wrapped, that we forget everything about reality. (f.e.a.r.) Every time, we are reminded in the Substance Lesson, there is no matter. This Lesson is no different. Thank heavens!
Section 1: No fairy tale. There’s only one creation.
“In the beginning” is our real place (in consciousness) to be where there is always light. (B1, 2) We can realize the incredible power and authority of the Word in the Psalms passages. (B3) The Word, command, law has no counterpart, no opposition. People do come up with many inventive ideas (devices), but if it is not of God, it isn’t, has no effect.NO MATTER! (S&H1, 2, 3, 4) Our clarity on creation and the establishment of Spirit’s ideas involves nothing material. What ‘s interesting is that Truth doesn’t know matter or error. (S&H 2) We won’t be fooled by the “fading, finite forms” (S&H4) Instead we will understand the definition of substance as in marker 5. It is the answer to, “What is substance?” in Recapitulation. (Look at 468, same page as the scientific statement of being. No matter.) So? It’s eternal, incapable of discord and decay, Truth, Life, Love, things hoped for, evidence of unseen, Spirit, Mind, Soul, God, real, compound, reflecting Spirit.
Section 2: Faith, faith, faith!
Are we really faithful? Does faith mean believing in something with all the heart or what is it. Each one of us must find what we understand to be faith for ourselves. In markers 7 & 8, we sure have the guidelines to discover faith by definition, a good starting point. When do we become so convinced of what is true that we no longer think twice or doubt? Do we have to see proof to believe?The “no matter” reminder again in S&H 6 says not to be fooled by “false supposition”. It’s only supposition, not something real, that would tempt us to believe that there is “erring, changing, and dying, mutable, and mortal” conditions that we have to deal with. What must we change (in our chrysalis state S&H7) to prove the errors wrong? Thought! Never do we accept supposition as fact. We under (sub) stand (take our stance) true spiritual evidence. (S&H 8) We don’t get rid of matter. It is never real. So we do not change anything, but realize what is already true.
Section 3: Who can be the full of faith? How old? Does the Energizer bunny know this?
Everyone! All are given power and strength form God the Creator! Young and old, in ancient times and the present! Do we know it? (B9) As we are obedient to God’s direction, we will be like Joshua and Caleb. Both served God in the way that Moses taught them. They proved their God-given dominion over the suppositions of matter concepts. They were faithful. Notice in B12 where the strength comes from. Age has nothing to do with it!What are the requirements for ageless life? “Unselfish ambition, noble life motives, purity”. (S&H 9) Our real being is continuous. We have the right force – Mind ((S&H10). I don’t know how many of us would want to cross Niagara Falls, (Blondin did it many times), and we have the dominion to do what we need to do if it is an honest endeavor. (S&H12) We are moved by divine energy. God powered and empowered. We are not limited mortals. (S&H13) Let’s not allow the body to push us around!
Section 4: Even a non-believer has faith. Faith and humility – God-given qualities!
God’s gift of healing is free to all. (B13, B14) The centurion, a Roman soldier, was humble enough to ask Jesus to heal his servant. First, the story shows how much the centurion cared for his servant since he sought aid for him. Second, he had probably heard about Jesus’ wonderful healing work or how Jesus was upsetting the Jewish community by his unorthodox theology. Either one, he put down his own authority to yield, in faith, to the authority of Jesus to follow his command. The centurion realized too, that only the word was needed, nothing else. We have that word, don’t we? We have the faith, too.We do have it! (S&H 14) “Man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter.” We must refuse to be deluded, no inverted images. Look up online (http://brightbytes.com/cosite/what.html) or in a book about camera obscura and see what you find about inverted images. How do we really see? Do we “speak to disease as one having authority” as Mrs. Eddy tells us? As Jesus showed us? (S&H 16,17) Look at the key in the phrase after “speaking to disease”. “Leave Soul to master the false evidences”. Soul does the work! Then of course, “Stick to it!” “Plead!” But we do both knowing that we have the Truth! (S&H 18) What is faith? “An absolute understanding of Him, an unselfed (no personal self) love.”(S&H 19)
Section 5: Money is never the treasure! It can’t buy eternal life.
Why does Jesus correct the ruler in Bible marker 15 on the point of good? If the man measures success by money and literal obedience to the commandments, his tally would not be based on God-given, permanent riches. He needs to learn what true worth is – spiritual ideas – and the humility to witness them. Jesus knew the value of the lesson. Those who recognize their wealth have direct orders in I Timothy (B 16) – be not high minded (conceited or egotistical), not trust in false material goods or ideas. The orders for right – trust God so we can “lay hold on eternal life” and distribute and communicate that good. Before we do that we must be ready, ready on a firm foundation of solid ideas. The comparison in the Science and Health, too, is what do we really treasure as permanent, substantial. Is it visible or invisible? We must listen for our “God appointing”(S&H 20) Notice that Mrs. Eddy uses the word “indivisible” with Spirit’s substance. There is no fragmenting, no “not enough”, or “too much”, but always a complete and balanced sense of good that is always present for everyone, everywhere. There’s not a mortal man and an immortal. (S&H 23) That wholeness is also stated as “one grand brotherhood”.(S&H 24)
Section 6: Just do it!
We got the word, straight from God, through the Lesson, that the only substance is spiritual, good, perfect. It is ours! It is consistent, constant, continuous. We not only have it, we “be it”, as a result must, “do it”. We naturally follow and show our God-heritage. Jesus is our Wayshower. He did it so that we would follow him as God appoints. It’s our turn. (B 19)Do we love the Christly commands – “healing sickness and destroying sin”? (S&H 25) How often do we allow the weather-vane of mortality push us around? (S&H 26) What do we believe, or more important, what do we understand? Marker 27 gives us a list of commands and conditions for prayer. Do it – pray without ceasing. How? Secretly, live it, rejoice, self-forgetful, pure, love, practice, understand, be trustworthy, be fit, sacrifice. Why? Love, God gives us everything in fullness and completeness in the effortless fullness as the “blossom shines through the bud”. (S&H 28) We have always been wholly developed ideas, continually blossoming. No weeds in God’s universe!
Camp Director’s Note: The above sharing is the latest in a long series of CedarS Bible Lesson “mets” (metaphysical application ideas) contributed weekly by a rotation of CedarS Resident Practitioners and occasionally by other metaphysicians. This document is intended to initiate further study as well as to encourage the application of ideas found in the Weekly Bible Lessons as printed in the Christian Science Quarterly and as available at Christian Science Reading Rooms.* Originally sent JUST to campers, staff and CedarS families who wanted to continue at home and in their home Sunday Schools the same type of focused Lesson study and inspiration they had felt at camp, CedarS lesson “mets” are in no way meant to be definitive or conclusive or in any way a substitute for daily study of the lesson in the books. The thoughts presented are the inspiration of the moment and are offered to give a bit more dimension, background and daily applicability to some of the ideas and passages being studied. The citations referenced in the “met” (metaphysical application ideas) are taken from the King James Version of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. The Bible and Science and Health are the ordained pastor of the Churches of Christ, Scientist. The Bible Lesson is the sermon read in Christian Science church services throughout the world. The Lesson-Sermon speaks individually through the Christ to everyone, providing unique insights and tailor-made applications for each one. We are glad you requested this metaphysical sharing and hope that you find some of these ideas helpful in your daily spiritual journey, in your deeper digging in the books and in closer bonding with your Comforter and Pastor.)
Enjoy!
Warren Huff, Director director@cedarscamps.org
1314 Parkview Valley
Manchester, MO 63011
(636) 394-6162
