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Your First Love Is Light

Do not forget your first love. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt 6:33). Never, for a moment, seek the things. God does not and cannot give us things. Never find satisfaction in things; never claim things as possessions.

Question: What does God supply?
Answer: Light - enlightenment, understanding. From beginning to end, the purpose of Scripture is to illumine consciousness. At the beginning of the Bible, "God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen 1:3). At the Bible's conclusion, Christ says, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (Rev 22:16).

We all receive light as God's manifestation. Our human perception of the things we receive is our highest conception of that manifestation; it is not the manifestation itself. For Moses at the Red Sea, his highest conception of enlightenment was dry passage. Moses could not conceive of floating armored personnel carriers nor could he yet perceive of how to instantly be on the other side. His conception was practical in the human sense, even using what looked like a physical law - a strong east wind. God provided Moses with insight, courage, spiritual vision, strength to go forward, and protection from his enemies; the solution was strictly Moses' conception. For the children of Israel wandering in the desert with slave mentality, their highest conception of God's provision was manna and water to fill their bellies. Joseph saved a nation from starvation with grain; God taught him to love his brethren. David killed Goliath with a smooth stone because that is what he believed possible, yet it was God who provided the fearless conviction, strength, and accuracy.

Jesus' solutions, on the other hand, were never objects based on material law. He provided wine at a wedding feast without planting, cultivation, harvesting, or a fermentation process. At the raging sea, Jesus did not offer shelter - he stilled the waves. He did not need time - he and his disciples in the boat were immediately on the other side, negating material law. Jesus did not forget nor neglect his first and only love: Love. His objects were translations of spiritual law, confounding physics and nullifying the praise or complaint of mortal mind.

Spiritual healing in Christian Science is completely outside of mortal mind's conception; it calls mortal mind to come out from itself - from its own false conceptions. Yet even Christian Scientists can be fooled into leaving their first love by thinking that God healed them or gave them a house, a job, or a spouse. God does not ever intervene in human affairs to change the form or nature of our material existence, however intriguing or persistent that idea may be to struggling humanity.

Are we seeking physical healing, or are we seeking the light that sees nothing to heal? If we perceive God's conception of us, we are perfect now. Do you recall the parable of the ten virgins? Five were wise and five were foolish. Consecration to good ignites our five spiritual senses, filling our mental vessel with spiritual wisdom. On the other hand, the five material senses leave us foolishly unaware of God's ever-presence. David's five smooth stones were symbolic of his ability to spiritually perceive how to destroy the giant fear that mortal mind would have him believe. The man who refused to attend the marriage of the Lamb because he wanted to test his five yokes of oxen blindly tilled the soil of his material senses in a hopeless attempt to figure out how to manage without a spiritual connection. He was unaware that "I [Christ] am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" - to the end of our sense of imperfection (Matt 28:20).

Not only is spiritual healing outside of mortal mind's conception, but all spiritual education is also outside of it. Have you ever declared that you learned Christian Science from a teacher, Science and Health, or the Bible? Then you have forgotten your first love. Mary Baker Eddy knew that she could not personally teach Christian Science; instead, she guided her students to the place where they could hear and see the governing divine Principle for themselves. This is seminal to preserving our relationship with our first love. When Jesus said, "Follow me," he really was saying, 'Follow My method, not my person. I go to God for everything - now you do it!'

The first tenet of Christian Science is "as adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (SH 497:3). The inspired Word is the in Spirit Word. All scripture is originally heard by its recipient in Spirit language, not in Hebrew, Greek, English or any human language. Take a moment to recollect being overcome by an angel message that you know was not your own, not your voice. It is knowledge from such an experience that has meaning beyond language and ultimately guides us to eternal life. Mary Baker Eddy heard angel messages in just that way and wrote them down in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She said, "I was a scribe under orders" (Mis 311:26). As we become alive to this fact, we will see that Science and Health is also written in Spirit language. Mortal mind cannot understand it, so we need to stop trying to use our physical senses to figure it out. I once asked a dear friend of mine who had only an elementary school education, "How do you understand all those big words in Science and Health?" He just laughed and said, "I just ask God what it means, and He tells me!" It was as if he were asking, 'Is there any other way to read it?'

The only reality that you know for sure is what God supplies, and that supply is wholly spiritual, now and forever. As image and likeness, you are the spiritual manifestation of supply that you are seeking. You are the thought of Mind, and, as such, you can have anything that you can think. From the vantage point of Life, your material body is not alive: God is living you. From the vantage point of Mind, your brain cannot think: God is thinking you. From the vantage point of divine Love, you cannot love of yourself: God is loving you into existence.

We must stop trying to get mortal mind to work for us! This world cannot be saved any more than mortal mind can become immortal. This earth has no silver lining with which to bless us or to give us spiritual vision. Jesus never expected any affirmation from this world and he received none. In this sense, Jesus never healed a case: as he shared his perfect view of man with his friends, they caught something of his Christ, Mind, and they naturally began to embody that spiritual mind which replaced their sickly views of themselves. Mortal mind is educated out of itself in just this way.

If it is true that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need," then it must be true that the complete solution to the problem of being is always right in front of our faces, waiting for us to recognize it (SH 494:10). Think of it: the solution to the problem of being is right in front of your face right now! In case you missed it, here is the solution: for God and His perfect image, there is no problem of BEING! Who else but Christ could have shown the solution to be so simple? The light of this acknowledgment will guide us through a sense of time and space into wise comfort, where there is no memory of or effect from material experience.

The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being. (SH 40:31)

In the 1910 edition of Science and Health, the Christian Science textbook concludes with the following testimony.

Through the careful and prayerful study of Science and Health I have been lifted from sickness to health, from sorrow to peace, from lack to plenty, and, the most beautiful of all, from darkness to light. - Mrs. H. S. C., Seattle, Wash.