If you ever feel pressured by family members, neighbors, or co-workers to do something that compromises your values, don’t be quick to cave. To stay healthy, strong, and thriving, it’s critical that one lives with a clean conscience.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal good” (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 8).
The first person you must be honest with, is with yourself! What is the spiritually right thing to do? What is true to all that you hold dear and close to your heart?
A compromised heart is a weak heart. A mind of honesty, integrity, sincerity, and conviction of Truth is a strong citadel that keeps error away and maintains peace and dominion.
When you side with Truth, you are always safe.
If you try to please others by serving their unnecessary fears and false beliefs, you not only compromise your own values and life, in due time, it’s likely that they will make even more demands on you to compromise further.
Do what you do because you honestly understand it to be the best thing to do. Live true to your understanding of Truth.
Eddy reminds us, “Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 453).
Be true to thyself—to your spiritual self! Let God guide you in your decision-making, not personal sense, or the will of others. When it’s you and God making the decision, the outcome will be perfect.
I am so grateful for all your blogs, Evan. Today’s blog is very timely for me…just the support I needed to hear. Thank you!
Thank you Evan for this inspiring message today. It is so important to be true to ones self in all matters. A quote from liene Beckerman comes to mind: “If you have to stand on your head to make somebody happy, all you can expect is a big headache.” So being true to yourself and turning to God first in all one does brings happiness, joy, and freedom, which in doing so, one cannot make mistakes or ever have regrets. Blessings to all.
So true! Love reading this today!
Thanks ever so much, Evan. These wonderful blogs are so helpful, providing the spiritual nutriment to progressively demonstrate God’s love.
Thank you today’s Spiritview Evan.
Thanks Evan — great reminder. I was reading recently that when we need to make decision, we need to decide if its the Shepherd that is guiding us, or human will. His guidance is always right.
So timely. Standing for truth makes one stronger in God’s word. Thank you Evan for these wonderful treatments each
Morning. Love all the comments also.
Thanks for these wonderful reminders to stand up for what u feel is right and to be guided by the one Mind.
Love all the comments and love expressed by this Spirit View family. Love right back to all.
Thanks for these wonderful reminders to stand up for what u feel is right and to be guided by the one Mind.
Love all the comments and love expressed by this Spirit View family. Love right back to all.
Thank you, and yes, very timely while feeling pressure from non Scientist friends, to get vaccinated. I was being tempted to do it out of respect for them and to ease their fears, but it’s that really being true to what I believe? No.
So thank you, for reminding me to be steadfast during these times of extreme pressure to get vaccinated!
Right on! This is as important as anything that we can do for ourselves and others. It is in fact the second commandment. thank you Evan.
Great timing! I needed this, and thank you for the wonderful and helpful articles you share,
Thank you so much for this truth. I am reminded also of the quote from Shakespeare: “To thine own self be true and as the night follows the day thou shalt be untrue to no one.”.
Mrs. Eddy also says to “Know thyself” and God will supply the wisdom necessary…..
Was awake most of last night because my new doctor wants has prescribed a pain relief drug with multiple side effects that I don’t want to take . I plan to call the pharmacy and tell them and the doctor that even though it is a low dose, I don’t feel comfortable taking it. This message came at a VERY appropriate time for me.
Very important insights. Success it seems to me has much to do with being a transparency for Truth and keeping close to ones moral compass. Not much of a better way to do that than to prove it in ones decisions they are making every day. Thanks for the message of galvanization that staying true to ones self lends to a clean and clear conscience, which opens the petals of our holy purpose, and shines it forth in our health, conviction, and contentment. Great to reflect on this.
Yes, thanks Jordan, staying true to ourselves does lend to a clear, clean conscience , opening the petals to our holy purpose- I like that! When we are staying true to who God made us to be, we are staying open to His all good guidance for our life,
Thanks Evan for reminding us of this important lesson!
This fits so well with today’s Daily Lift!
Thank you. Even
Sorry….EVAN
Science and Health, p. 44 “Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves…” I understand this ALSO as : “The first person you must be honest with, is with yourself! ” as Evan says. Thank you for this post.
Thank you Evan! I couldn’t help thinking about the pressure everyone is under to accept the Covid vaccine when reading your post today. That’s an individual decision that everyone needs to make for themselves and I for one will not judge anyone regardless of the decision they make. But in my own thinking about that issue I keep thinking about all of the courageous people in the Bible who, through their understanding of God, were willing and able to face down tremendous pressure to yield their religious convictions. And also the positive effect their unshakeable faith in God had during their time and centuries later (as we continue to be inspired by their stories today as conveyed in the Bible. For example I looked up Daniel in Wikipedia and it has the following:
It [the story of Daniel in the Bible] parallels and complements chapter 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: each begins with the jealousy of non-Jews towards successful Jews and an imperial edict requiring them to compromise their religion, and concludes with divine deliverance and a king who confesses the greatness of the God of the Jews and issues an edict of royal protection.
Note how the description indicates how their actions caused even the king to confess the greatness of God! Aren’t these Bible stories just examples of what happens to everyone, every day? Aren’t we all continuously bombarded by pressure to compromise our understanding of God and God’s creation? When we yield to that pressure when we know better it just strengthens the opposition to what we hold dear, i.e. God and God’s idea. Of course trying to do more than we currently understand can also have negative consequences, so it’s important to be honest with oneself and make decisions based on our current understanding. But if we understandingly know that Covid has no power because God does not know it and God does not give it power over us (God’s reflection), then we can feel safe declining pleas to “go along with everyone else”.
So grateful to know that God is no respecter of persons. (Sorry, can’t reference this quote, here.)
This comforts me in thinking of the man in the jail cell, the drunk in the gutter, the corrupt politician, the folks confused about vaccinations, etc.
Spiritual law is impartial, impersonal, universal… like the law of….gravity. Or aerodynamics:
even the cave men could fly if they knew how to access this law. Now, thanks to Mary Baker Eddy’s deep study of Christ Jesus’ teachings, we have divine Science, the Knowledge of the Truth, with which to understand and to access God’s laws. I am so glad to even glimpse this.
And grateful, as always, for your steadfast adherence to these laws, Evan. Thank you.
Thank you for this message Evan. I pray to let the One Mind guide me in all decisions and to be humble and to be alert to recognize when self will/human will or the need to be humanly “right” tries to creep in — and cast that out.
Matthew 6:6 says when we pray we should go into our prayer closet and shut the door.
That means to me that all can be settled between us and God alone, without outside mortal influences confusing things.
Sending a lot of love and encouragement to the SpiritView family as we grow and learn together!
Wonderful, Evan! I too noticed that in today’s “Daily Lift” the speaker faced the same issue–follow God’s leading or “cave” to the pressure of someone else’s urging. We all have those choices to make, don’t we? So appreciate the reminder to follow Divine Love and not human “urging”!
Thank you for reminding me that myself was God’s idea in the first place, so how can I not be it?! It’s okay to be myself. I realize suddenly that I had become quite judgmental of my own comings and goings. So, no more of that. I will have fun today because that is how it’s supposed to be.
Rhondda, I’m right there with what you said. If God made us, then being ourselves (spiritually, not what matter calls us) is quite natural and freeing. I too have tended to judge “myself” but I was judging a mortal idea, I love the idea of having fun, we all need more of that. Best to you.
As far as the other issue being discussed in other posts, for myself I see the need to allow all human will/human outlining to drop, as well as fear of what others will think or ask me etc. etc as jhp has mentioned above, and instead lift thought to the most high One Mind God, the only mind I (and all) can express. There aren’t multiple minds with conflicting ideas, as it might seem, just One. Right now I’m humbly trusting God day by day to guide me and the right inspiration will become clear.
I love your blogs but felt that today’s could be seen as being rather biased towards not having the COVID vaccination. I know of many CS (including practitioners) who have had this, not because they wanted to but because, like myself, they wanted to be loving to their communities and their families. My husband is not CS, our friends are not CS but they know I am, and I have sensed their relief when they knew that I had been vaccinated. I did not want any malpractice or negative thoughts directed towards me if I chose not to have it. I have done this out of love and just wanted to make it clear that many CS are doing the same thing.
Dear Anonymous, Please try to understand that it is out of love for their communities and families that some Christian Scientists have decided not to be vaccinated. And that doesn’t make them right and you wrong. We each have to decide what is our highest sense of right based on our current understanding.
Thank you Evan, as always, and thanks to Brian’s comments today. Yes, it seems there is pressure and concern to compromise and get the Covid vaccine. “Why, haven’t you had it?” “Do you at least have a date to go?”, “Well, you know you will eventually have to get it if traveling internationally!”, “You will be left out because you could be a carrier, the vaccine protects us from death but not completely from getting Covid!”, etc, etc. At first I thought I needed a pat answer, one that enabled me to be truthful but not that encouraged a “drill down” and push back. Upon reflection, and being true to myself, I know that God will give me just the right response for each person in that moment and that God loves us both unconditionally no matter what our decision is. If in the future my country sets standards for all to follow I will abide by the rules, Thank you for this timely SV, it was just what I needed today.
Thanks Evan for addressing this important topic.
-Enjoying this article:
Spiritual reasoning:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2mjpcdw0mrg?s=e
This has been a very encouraging SV today. I’d like to think that ‘being true to myself ‘ over decisions has/would always start with God, Mind leading me in the right path. Daily SV gives me a gentle push reminding me of my true identity. Mrs Eddy did say we should ‘emerge gently from matter to Spirit’. ( Sorry if that quote isn’t word perfect.) There is always more to know and understand. Thank you Evan and everyone as always.❣️
The ultimate protection from Covid lies with faith. However one must respect the safety and concern of others who do not shsre hat faith. Reflecting that concern (and not being a CS) I took the jab – survied (so far!) in the reassurance that faith protects from a much wider range of Covid types than the available vaccines do. Thanks Evan for your valued input.
Thank you Evan, for this, very important reminder. I know everyone lives their life (materially) the best way for themselves, that they can. God will lead each into their correct path. For me it’s not so much about the pros and cons, as praying and listening for that still small voice, that will guide each of us. Love should and does rule, however, Christ Jesus didn’t throw himself on a Roman sword just because they didn’t like what he was saying, despite Satan’s promises whilst up on a high place, albeit he still loved everyone. For me it’s not about pro or antivax but lovingly prochoice (within the law). I know God is lovingly guiding his lamb’s into his ever loving arms, always. We are all so blessed. Thank you everyone for sharing.
Yes Rick! Listening for that still small voice. We are the beloved family of God and He continues taking care of all of us and and loving all of us, regardless of “our” decisions.
Am very grateful for your healing and helpful and important SpiritView up here. Thank you very much for it, dear Evan! I just need it a lot. I must study it more times!
Thank you Evan for the answer to a very pertinent subject . I have been blessed to have been a Scientist all my life and have always taken a stand ( if allowed by law ) to avoid any inoculations , vaccines whatever and have applied for medical exemption when possible .
This time it seems that error has a strong grasp on mortal mind and I am constantly being harangued about why I am not planning to succumb to error . To the point that I am being ostracized from my regular groups at my Pickle Ball club . What a temptation to give in !
Now when I am asked I happily answer ” Oh , yes , it has been taken care of , Thank you ” and /or ” I am immune , it seems .”
I trust God , that when it comes time for me to start traveling again , HE will have the answer .
Thankyou so much Evan for all your blogs been so helpful.
Thank you, and this may be helpful also
https://gentleartofblessing.org/integrity-2/