It’s natural to want to see a better world – free from suffering, oppression, and bad behavior. The daily news reports much injustice and tragedy. But we also hear of people’s courage, forgiveness, and kind and often heroic deeds. When people act unselfishly, it reveals a higher standard of humanity that transcends personal absorption and gives true peace and satisfaction.
The opening text of this week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson, titled “Man,” affirms that “every one of us is given grace” – a divine quality that enables us to rise above selfishness and fear – “till we all come … unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:7, 13).
Through his healing ministry, Christ Jesus set a standard for the perfect man – not perfect mortals, but man and woman in their true nature as the spiritual likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26, 27). “Perfect” would include kindness, generosity, integrity. Other citations in the Lesson affirm that nothing can prevent our ability to feel and express our divine source, the God that is Love.
Yet most of us feel the pull of selfishness at times. Another section of the Lesson addresses the notion that rather than coming from a spiritual source, we have a history of material development that makes us innately selfish, walking “after vanity,” as the Bible puts it (Jeremiah 2:5). Vanity can include emptiness, conceit, and lacking contentedness. We may feel we don’t have what makes up a fulfilling life.
But the innate grace, or goodness, we have from our divine source does keep nudging – and often shaking – us to recognize our true, satisfying, spiritual nature. We can each be a light in the world by keeping the faith that everyone, in their deepest nature, is responsive to God – is spiritual, good, and essential to the wholeness of life.
A Bible story in the Lesson illustrates the power of a desire for a more spiritually centered life. Elisha, a disciple of the great prophet Elijah, had seen the good Elijah was able to accomplish through understanding and relying on God. Elisha was so dedicated that he would not leave Elijah for a moment when he knew Elijah was about to pass from his material sight. Elisha’s commitment enabled him to continue following Elijah’s example and to accomplish much good.
We too can commit to following examples of goodness. The Bible encourages us to “hold fast that which is good” (I Thessalonians 5:21). We can hold to the reality that no one’s true, spiritual identity can be lost. When we hear of bad behavior, we can respond constructively by supporting and expressing the strength and goodness of a higher standard. We can rise above anger, cynicism, or despair by appreciating courage, persistence, and unselfishness as spiritual qualities inherent in everyone.
The Bible Lesson points to the example of Jesus, who not only healed people in desperate need but also assured us that we can do this too. That’s because the foundation of his works was “the Science of creation,” including the fact that God, divine Spirit, “creates neither a wicked nor a mortal man, lapsing into sin, sickness, and death” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 539-540).
While Jesus’ example may seem far above what we can attain, we can begin to follow it as best we can. For instance, we can pray to see beyond desperation or cruelty as inevitable, strive to acknowledge the “very good” man God has created, try to express more of that goodness in our own life, and firmly stand up to whatever degrades the true sense of man as God’s image. This consistent desire and action is prayer that leads to ideas and actions to comfort those in need and check behavior in need of correction.
The first section of the Lesson concludes with the call, “Let the ‘male and female’ of God’s creating appear” (Science and Health, p. 249). This is not just a wish, but calls for an active willingness to rise to the true standard of man in the likeness of God.
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