After reading through the book of Matthew with the intent of understanding better how to follow Christ to heaven, I was impressed with Jesus’ teaching that we must part with the pleasures of sense to be saved from mortality and its sufferings. Reveling in material comfort can have the effect of causing one to feel separated from God even more than painful disease; and even worse, it dulls spiritual sense, creates a false feeling of safety, and saps faith in Spirit.
I chuckled a bit when I thought about the kind of calls I receive from patients in my Christian Science practice. Without exception, every recent caller who came to mind sought relief from some type of pain, emotional or financial turmoil, or disease. This type of call is expected, on my part, of course.
But none of them called up and said, “Evan, I’m too dangerously comfortable in matter today. I love to eat. I spend too many idle hours mindlessly watching TV. I love my house; I have plenty of income. I like the shape of my physical body. I enjoy its pleasures. Life in this material world feels very pleasing to me, and I know this is a dangerous place to be in thought. Will you snap me out of this blind mesmerism before it all falls apart?”
Nope. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone call with that concern.
It would be called preventative metaphysical maintenance!
On the other hand, of the people who do call for help, many of them were in similar positions to the above…before trouble hit…
…and we often learn life’s spiritual lessons this way…
This type of potential liability stimulates some sobering questions to answer if you’re one of those cruising through a so-called material existence with comfort.
Are your mental pinions truly spiritual? Are you crystal clear where lasting joy comes from? Could you still be happy and at peace if what you trust materially today were gone tomorrow?
And thus we learn to be wise! We don’t have to wait to learn Spirit’s lessons the hard way. We can learn them the easy way by being proactive with truth today.
All good does come from God, Spirit, the source of all life, substance and joy. Understanding and living this truth brings the greatest pleasure of all.
Some words of wisdom from Mary Baker Eddy:
“Mortal belief must lose all satisfaction in error and sin in order to part with them.” Science and Health, p. 296
“The pains of sinful sense are less harmful than its pleasures. Belief in material suffering causes mortals to retreat from their error, to flee from body to Spirit, and to appeal to divine sources outside of themselves.” Science and Health, p. 405
“It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestionable signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life.” Science and Health, p. 232
I liked the phrase “reveling in material comfort” – it helped me understand the difference between gratitude for what I have and unhealthy attachment to material things. My life and spirit are rich because of my connection to God, not because of what I own or experience through the senses.
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God bless the first commenter. I would ask that child of his Father to remember Christ Jesus counsel to the disciple John when he objected to a man who was ..”.not one of us,” healing in his name. “Do not stop him. The man who is not against you is on your side.” We are all members od Gods family. Much love to you, and thank you Evan for this blog.
Wonderful blog, Evan, as always. It reminds me of a wonderful article I was studying yesterday, titled “Healing and the whole Christ” by Barbara Cook, published in September, 1983: http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1983/9/101-9/healing-and-the-whole-christ
Thank you for all you do for the world!
Wonderful call Evan…and God bless all of Her/His children today so that none needs to continue to be driven by error into believing in a life of pleasure or suffering in mater.
Makes me laugh out loud how true this is!! So clear & understated. Thanks again, there is nothing like Evan’s shared line of thought to whop one on the side of the head!
I must thank Anonymous #5 for referring me to Barbara Cooks article. This whole blog of Evan’s and Barbara’s Journal article was most helpful in helping me understand the ascension.
Bravo!
This post reminded me of an October 2005 Christian Science Journal article entitled “Service Driven – A Conversation with Timothy MacDonald”.
In the last paragraph of that article, Mr. MacDonald replies “Often people ask me why they aren’t able to heal the way they did when they first found Christian Science….A great part of the answer to that concern is that they probably get to a point in their growing understanding of God where the demands of going further are frightening to them…Then they almost consciously give their permission to stop growing spiritually. Since healing is the inevitable effect of one’s growing understanding of God, then healing also begins to stop.”
Thanks again for your blog post to remind me (and everyone) to keep growing spiritually and not be content with “sense pleasures”.
To above,
Thanks for sharing! Your mention of people not growing because they are frightened of rising to the spiritual demand of the moment turned on bright light bulbs in my thinking! So true… Are we willing to leave ALL for Christ? That is the crucial question to answer aright….