“To leave all for Christ is leaving nothing and finding all.”
~ Mary Baker Eddy, “In my True Light and Life, MBE Collections,” p. 581.
People often get afraid when they are confronted with the Christian demand to leave all for Christ. But there is nothing to fear when one understands that all real substance will never be found in a material world. It is found in Christ.
Christ is the power and presence of God at work on our behalf giving us everything we need to be healthy and strong, provided for, safe and secure.
When you have Christ, you have everything!
To leave all for Christ, means to leave a limited material sense of things behind that would cover up God’s goodness in front of us. Once the material sense is dropped for the spiritual, God’s reality grows clearer, and real substance is found.
Life is a joy in Christ! Go for it with gusto!
I love this!
Thanks for the encouragement, Coach Mehlanbacher!
I love this, “…all real substance will never be found in a material world.” And, “…leave a limited material sense of things behind that would cover up God’s goodness in front of us.”
I can feel the peace and assurance of those truths.
Go for it with gusto! Indeed !
Haha dear Katherine. That is nice and I would tune in being very grateful to our all dear “Coach Evan”.
However, for me I would say, today’s SpiritView is a strong encouragement and inspiration for my prayers.
Thank you very much Evan!
I recently have contemplated that the sign that Jesus embodied the Christ (God promised Savior), was the/his power to heal. So this morning this quote meant to me, to leave all for Christ, the spiritual idea/power that heals all is most wonderfully gaining all.
Today’s visual that accompanies your words could not be more perfect Evan. Deep gratitude❣️ After having some restless nights, I have been focusing on leaving all for Christ when I lie down to sleep for the night. I let the thoughts of the day disappear and only think of my oneness. My challenge is to carry this into my days and not allow myself to get caught up in current events and what mortal mind is wanting me to think is reality. God’s grace is my sufficiency is what I will repeat moment by moment throughout my days…
Thank you
Thank you Evan for this very helpful View which is speaking to my thought today.
Thank you to you as well Susan, I will be keeping my errant thoughts in line with “God’s grace is my sufficiency”
I have simplified my life by having much less material possessions than I once had. It was simply freeing to get rid of all the stuff!! Some are amazed that I made the decision to have what appears to be less, although I can honestly say I have all I need. Knowing that we are living with God and being aware of the Christ in our daily lives, we have much! We really do have it all! Thank you God!
When I was in my 20s, I gave my life to Jesus. In Christian Science, Jesus disappears after the ascension. Where is Jesus now? What is He doing? Who did I give my life to? I understand that Christ Jesus is the name for the coincidence of human and divine. Wouldn’t that divine coincidence be the same yesterday, today, and forever? How did Christ Jesus become just Christ?
After His ascension, Jesus appeared to Paul, Stephen, and John. Where did He appear to them from? Is Jesus at the right hand of God interceding for us, as it says in Hebrews?
What did Mrs. Eddy mean when she said there was no incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth?
Do I have to give up my personal relationship with Jesus to become a Christian Scientist?
Good questions! It appears you are on a quest – a quest prompted by your inner being which is God – for wisdom and understanding, and you have the innate ability to think and reason as Jesus did in order to find the answers yourself or the desire would never have surfaced in the first place. We can rejoice that mankind was given a “boost” in Jesus of Nazareth who was on the same quest to understand Life and how to live it more abundantly, and he not only left us the path with instructions (how to think) and examples (when and how to apply) to follow, but in his achieving complete alignment or oneness with our Father/Source (his spiritual ascension) he gave to all the greatest gift of his Christ consciousness to the one Mind we all share – his awareness that we have but to receive to avoid crucifying ourselves over and over for our wrong (inverted) thinking in trial and error learning. To give ourselves to Christ (the perfect idea (Son) of God the Father) is to choose the way of right thinking about Truth our Source and Sustainer paves for us. Right thinking by law produces in kind – right effects or manifestation. Jesus gave the key in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Nowadays we find the subjective attachment to words and other people’s interpretation and opinions can trip us up and Jesus cautioned accordingly. Institutions, teachers and books all have their place to stimulate our thinking and seek reasoned understanding, but no one person, place or thing has it all for everyone. Jesus taught us to trust only the Holy Spirit – the whole of God, Spirit, Source within – to teach and guide. The Holy Spirit will prompt our path in using these tools most effectively in order to fulfill our individual divine purpose here and now – which of course means always. Hope this gives you some help and encouragement!
I found this very helpful Patty, thank you.
I found this very helpful Patty, thank you. When I put all my trust in the Holy Spirit, I find my guidance with clarity. We must settle in and block out the other suggestions wanting to infiltrate our thought. We must really listen to hear.
Dear Ashpenaz, I just checked my concordance to Science and Health and found approximately 300 references to Jesus. Here is one “Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother, Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh, between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrating the way of divine Science, he became the way of salvation to all who accepted his word.” pg. 315:29 to 316:2. Jesus is very much alive but is just no longer visible to us just like all who have passed from our sight. Life is eternal! “When we shall have passed the ordeal called death, or destroyed this last enemy, and shall have come upon the same plane of conscious existence with those gone before, then we shall be able to communicate with and to recognize them.” Miscellaneous Writings pg. 42:12 I hope this helps. Keep searching…you will find. Godspeed!
Because . . . “God is ALL – in ALL”.
Ashpenaz has some profound questions. I have wrestled with them myself. I love what one Sunday school student said: “Jesus is the man and the Christ is his job!” If we look at Jesus as the human being and the Christ as his relation to God, it may be easier to understand. Those who saw Jesus after the ascension saw God’s message to them appearing in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, just as some in the Bible saw angels. The Christ is never born and never dies and is always present as the divine message voicing good. While we appreciate Jesus and all that he did to show us the Way, it is the Christ that motivated him and heals us.
I hope this is helpful..
Here’s a quote from Marcus Borg which states my current understanding:
“(B)ecause the risen and ascended Jesus is “one with God,” he (like God) can be experienced anywhere. Jesus is no longer restricted or confined to time and space, as he was during his historical lifetime. Rather, like the God whom he knew in his own experience, he continues to be known in the experience of his followers.
To use language from Matthew’s Gospel, for Christians the risen and ascended Christ is Immanuel–‘God with us.'”
Is that what Mrs. Eddy is trying to say? Or do she and Borg have a different point of view?
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health “The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or “God with us,” — a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime, “To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense], And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised.”
pg. xi:9-21 If you use the concordance to Science and Health you can find everything Mrs.Eddy says on a specific subject. I have found it so helpful when searching for answers. I also responded to your first comment above. (=
I think part of what I’m trying to do is find connections between what Mrs. Eddy says and the writers I’ve been reading lately. The trouble is, their language can be so different! 🙂 Sometimes, it’s not clear to me what Mrs. Eddy is trying to say and whether she is essentially saying the same thing as someone else. For instance, I find her view of universalism similar to Rob Bell’s. Are they saying the same thing, though?
When Mrs. Eddy says “Immanuel,” does she mean the historical Jesus of Nazareth who walked around Galilee? Or something else? If there is no incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth, how can Jesus still exist?
Great example of the potential confusion with words! 1) Paul described God to the Athenians as that “in” whom we live and move and have our being. 2) Jesus taught God as a kingdom “within” 3) We know God as Spirit – omnipresent..However the word “with” can mean “next to” or “beside”, particularly when we have been taught a religion of dualism and separation. Listening to “God with me” isn’t as strong assurance as “God as me.” (God is All in All – Omnipresent – is a thought-starter to chew on for a lifetime!) Long ago people may not have understood cause and effect is a universal law, It was not uncommon to hear Spirit and matter were Real and Illusion which had the “All in All” folks (and today’s physical scientists!) shaking their heads. To declare matter an illusion means we are not having this conversation, but to see matter as the opposite end of a spectrum of the spiritual substance of God (the trinity of Spirit – Mind – Body (physically condensed energy to our physical senses) is scientifically supported by the evidence in the universe. David wrote of this so beautifully in the Psalms! So however it feels to you – and feelings are a means of measuring our alignment – prove it to yourself first. (with apologies to Paul and the Bereans!)
Thanks Sallie for a very good, clear explanation.
Dear Evan =; for some time I have had trouble seeing the whole of your blog on the screen, however the last two don’t show up at all – only half the screen is visible. I’d love it if something could be done to rectify this. I don’t know if being in Western Australia and not local has anything to do with it
Hi Carol,
It’s some time of issue on your tablet. I pray you figure it out! Welcome to the site.