I noticed that the Bible Readings for this weeks Lesson fall into different parts:
1. Declaration that God is "all in all" (Golden Text)
2. cry for deliverance and declaration of truth for healing (responsive reading)
3. the importance of striving with childlike trust and the purity of mind (Lesson sermon 1, 2,)
4. Maintaining Gods presence in our lives by destroying our idols (Lesson Sermon 3, 4,5, 6, 7,)
5. mercy, compassion and healing (lesson sermon 8,9)
For me personally, the message in parts 1 and 2 is that the declaration of our Faith (in other words simply arguing that a disease does not exist) is not enough for healing. But it needs to involve a calm openness in a very childlike way (point 3). Next it asks for a review of where my heart is. Why do I want this person to be healed, is it because I love them more than God? Is it a personal attachment. (an idol point 4) Am I afraid of this disease because I have seen other people die from it? Finally the healing comes as I learn that my life and that of others is under Gods control not mine, and it is not me who does the healing with my thinking but allowing Gods illumination to open my thinking (mercy, point 5) and how it is always important for me to remember that. Also that I need to always be forgiving others and showing mercy and compassion.
Gary
431 posts
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Location: n.a.
12/28/2015 18:04
Re: Bible Text.
It's great to see what people are getting out of the lesson. You have clearly taken it to heart.
You may be interested to know that this lesson was written by a member who is the mother of three teenage boys, and who wrote it as a treatment for our youth, to keep them from getting hooked on drugs; and as instruction for parents.
She had a deep need and desire to handle something very important for all of us, and that is why the lesson turned out so well. How can we expect our children to trust God completely if they don't know who and what He is? And how do they learn? By our example.
Joseph from Scotland
25 posts
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Location: United Kingdom
12/29/2015 06:18
Re: Bible Text.
How interesting.
Ive never really considered the Bible Lesson as a prayer or treatment but it completely makes sense to see it that way.
I remember that Mrs Eddy said in the Manual that the future of the Church depended on the Bible Lesson. She said
“a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends.”
so, not to see to see the Lesson as a metaphysical reality would result in a lack of prosperiety and lack of growth.
Gary
431 posts
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Location: n.a.
12/30/2015 08:04
Re: Bible Text.
A key point that Jesus was trying to get people to understand, and which Mrs. Eddy discovered and explained so well, is that God is divine Principle, which never changes. His "science" consists of the laws which govern the universe, and always have.
In Isaiah 54, it reads, "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord..." This is not only a comforting promise, it is a statement of scientific principle. At the time, the law of God was referred to as the "covenant." This "covenant" is not something that God made up at a certain time for a certain group of people. It is the laws that govern the universe and all living creatures. It always has and it always will. And furthermore, as Mrs. Eddy explains, this law is always good. It is divine Love. It is kind, and it brings peace and joy. And when we live in obedience to it (uphold our half of the bargain, so to speak) it heals every ill.
Thank you, Mrs. Eddy, for clearly explaining this science; for opening up the Bible to its real meaning.
