One of the most effective ways to stay healthy is to not let beliefs that cause suffering into consciousness in the first place.
It’s easier said than done, most of us would agree.
But there are some rules one can put into practice to eliminate suffering faster when error sneaks into consciousness and begs to take up residence.
One of those rules is to not allow error-creep.
By error-creep, I’m talking about allowing subtle errors to grow into bigger errors; allowing little fears to grow into bigger fears.
Error is a word used in Christian Science to designate anything that denies the reality of God. Disease, sin, and any other belief that results in suffering are examples of error.
For instance, if one hears an ad on TV warning of heart dangers, and entertains the suggestion, “Oh dear, heart problems are a concern,” but dismisses it and goes on with life, but then hears the ad again a week later, and becomes a little more concerned and thinks, “I hope I don’t’ get a heart problem,” and then dismisses it, but hears the ad again a month later and thinks, “I wonder if I have that heart problem,” and gets worried about it. Then one day during a heavy workout, feels something in his heart and thinks, “I think I have that heart problem,” and now is worried about it… I think you’re probably following where I’m taking you. It’s called error-creep.
Error-creep is allowing denials of God’s ever-present love and care to be forgotten and shoved aside while some type of evil takes its place in our awareness. It’s thought agreeing bit by bit, more with evil than with good.
Error-creep also happens with sin. We commit a little sin, and think, “No big deal.” And maybe it is no big deal. But a week goes by, and we do it again, and think, “Well, I did it before and nothing happened, so it doesn’t matter,” and we dismiss it. A month goes by and we do it again, and think, “Obviously it doesn’t matter because nothing bad is happening to me,” and we start to get comfortable with it. The sin takes stronger and stronger hold in thought until we don’t see the evil of our ways. This often happens with adultery, dishonesty, greed and a myriad forms of selfishness that leads to severe penalty at some point.
So, be alert. Prevent error-creep! Don’t accept sin and disease as normal or okay. Resist their suggestions mightily. Push back hard on mortal mind when it wants you to agree with disease or sin.
Paul admonished, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” James 4:7. Stand up for your spiritual rights when assaulted by error, and refuse to give in.
When you stand on the side of Truth, you will win, for Truth conquers error.
Error cannot creep around in the presence of Truth. It is wiped out and demonstrated to be powerless and nothing when negated with spiritual understanding.
In the divine design, you are a spiritual thinker prone only to entertaining thoughts of truth and love. There is no mental room for error to creep around, any more than hints of darkness can lurk in a bright light.
Keep your spiritual light glowing brightly, and error will find no room for residence in you.
Brilliant! Many thanks.
What a good reminder. Thanks.
Agree with Barb….brilliant! I love the phrase error-creep. It defines the carnal mind precisely.
Thank you, Evan!
Thank you Evan. A reminder to be ever vigilant. Blessings on the day to all.
Words are ineffable to express the gratitude for this post today…
This error creeping…letting in false concepts about health…has happened to me in my experience and it takes a bit more work to remove the error, after the fact, but of course can be overcome via Christian Science type prayer. Don’t let anything cloud your perfect vision of who you truely are as Gods Beloved Daughter/Son and your in-separable relationship with your Father-Mother God, SPIRIT, or Divine Love….
Also the error-creeping in regards to sin or in appropriate behaviour for individuals wishing to follow the Christian Science path, is that I get convinced at times that its alright “to download” TV shows, movies or whatever form of entertainment that one can get via “means” (basically ILLEGAL means….I dont care how anyone spins it, downloading or streaming of copyrighted material, via not paid, legitmate liscenced sources is stealing. “Thou shalt not steal”. Its in black and white, plain as day as one of the 10 commandemnts. I fall into this downloading of tv shows movies etc, that I dont want to pay the 2.99 for via itunes or google play or whatever platform the media can be aquired legally on. (the excuse, well I dont have enough money to pay for these items, and besides free is better, the big media corporations arent going to hurt if little old me…downloads their material..etc..) The rationilization is wrong. Anyways…Just delted a bunch of stuff I downloaded. Feels good. Mary Baker Eddy also wrote in Science and Health with key to the Scriptures (the main text book of Christian Science)…the “We should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is revealed; and the corner-stone of all spiritual building is purity.” (S&H 241:24-27)…also Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8 )
Thank you John for your honest post here. Honesty is Truth and Truth is God. As we are perfectly honest with our thoughts and actions we are close to God, the most satisfying place to be. To be honest in my actions, for instance in declaring and paying income taxes, is empowering as MBE states “Honesty is spiritual power.”
Thanks for putting your net on the “right” side and posting about it, and thank you Evan!
I love these Spiritview posts! I love the questions and the answers. They really make me think. I wanted to add something that helps me remember what the intent of error always is. This may be an Aesop’s fable but I’m not sure. It goes, a Nomad traveling in the desert sets up his tent for the night. Soon his camel, who is still outside, complains that it’s cold and asks to be let in. His master says firmly, “No, because if you come in there will be no room for me.” But the camel continues to pester and asks, “Well how about just my nose, that doesn’t take up much room.” The master considers the request and says,”Well, OK, but just your nose.” Before too long the camel want to move his head in and the master says alright, it seems reasonable enough, but then the requests escalates and the camel wants to move his neck in as well and then his shoulders and before long the Nomad realizes the whole camel is in and he is out in the cold.
I hope this analogy is helpful. Thank you all for your contributions!
Thank you Karen. I always wondered where the saying “don’t let the camel get his nose in your tent” came from. And your right, the “tent” can mean a lot of things.
Paul
Thank you Karen for that fable. In the first place it looks very funny. But of course it has a deeper meaning, yes a moral – very interesting 🙂
Super!
Thanks, Evan.
Good good thoughts!
Thanks, Evan! Now I see why the Bible uses the analogy of the serpent or snake when it speaks of error, animal magnetism……..a snake or a serpent or even a dragon creeps and crawls and slithers silently, often approaching its victim unawares! What is our Defense? “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good and the true……”!! “Good thoughts are an impervious armor, clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error (the creepy snake) or every sort……”!!!
This is wonderful! Thank you once again for your amazing insight! A great reminder to recognize the truth and elimate the error.
error-creep. sometimes all I can cling to is a phrase. thank you. Love the camel story, I vaguely remember it but now it is stuck in my consciousness.
Also, lately, I have had to block out mortal mind’s ideas about my lovely pets. It seems scary to make a choice to block anything but God’s thoughts but the other way has never worked, so go for it!
I have I question regarding sin…
I one sin worse than onother…
Is stealing a pencil from work less sinful that embezzling thousands of dollars…
Is harming an animal less than harming a human….?
I think most would agree that there are worse evils than others. Murder is a very serious evil and has horrible consequences. Stealing a pencil is wrong too, but much easier to rectify and come clean from.
Sin is sin. Wrong is wrong. I’m not sure the question “Is one sin worse than another?” is as constructive as “How can we all do better?”
I applaud the owner of the camel do
take such good care of his working partner
camel… very kind and unselfish act
Sin is a huge cocept and easily misunderstood
For instance, when sin occurs, who is sinning,
Gods creation is perfect and incapable of sin,
We are part of Gods creation, so our true being
is not capable of sin…..
Easy to say… well relatively speaking
humans sin…. well this does not go
far enough… human thought originating in mortal mind sins, yet we are taught mortal
mind is an illusion and has no basis in True Reality….so again what is sin truly?
I love your term, “error-creep”—so cool and right to the point! In defining sin, when I was a teenager I wondered what it really meant so I went to the dictionary, and found it meant “a transgression of God’s law.” Wow! I found that Christian Science was defined by Mrs. Eddy (RUD 1:1) as “the law of God, the law of good” and realized that any time I gave power to anything other than God (Spirit, Love, Truth, etc.) I was “sinning.” That is a thought process and our thought determines our words and actions. Error-creep still seems to want to slither its way into my thought sometimes, but I’m learning! Thanks to all for your contributions—great!
Thank you Evan for “error-creep”— right to the point.
Very good . Strong points to ponder
and put to practice.
Thank you Evan!
Thank you, Evan, for your awareness training on error-creep. What comes to mind from today’s blog is to watch for and never cater to one jot of error-creep. To wipe it out before it gets a chance to take root and from the church manual, “The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously” (Man. 40:11).
I understand, per Christian Science teachings,
that “sin” is any and all belief in a power or powers apart from, other than, God, the Only Real Power.
This is tough for those of us still mainly identifying ourselves as humans, for those who yet believe in the reality of the material sense
dream of life-in-matter. Human consciousness is being roused from this dream by the Christ, Truth, the divine message from God, speaking to the human consciousness. The Comforter, divine Science, is here to save us! While this saving work is in process, we seem to have to struggle a bit… sometimes a lot! And many many questions come up: should we let our camel come part way into ore tents? What about drinking coffee? Wasting time, watching dumb tv or reading novels? Get a hearing aid or glasses? Many questions. But our God is right with us, ever-rousing us, encouraging our spiritual growth! And when we finally awaken, it will be to learn that we never WERE asleep!
(The sleeper was Adam-the-dust-man, not US! )
:-))
Thank you, Evan and bloggers! This is a very good blog. Evan, you’re right- error is a creep! Simply not worth spending time with!! Over eating is also a “creep!”
Love the term “error creep” as it so aptly describes the subtle push of error. Through the camel story one can really visualize the creep. Thank you for alerting us once again to keeping our thought in line with God, thus leaving no room for error to enter. Thanks to all who added ideas to this blog. Very helpful.
Thank you Evan.
I love this clearly understood blog and the wonderful appreciative comments.
I love the term error-creep. That describes it perfectly! It’s good to know what it is and how to stop it in its tracks. Thank you so much for helping us all!
I agree with You, Maximo, re. Sin! I find that word, “sin”, very distasteful as it brings up guilt and shame, which we all have had too much of. I don’t believe we are sinful beings. I do believe we often make mistakes, as we are only here on this earth plane to learn. It’s a school and we are expected to make mistakes, that’s how we learn! As Mrs. Eddy says…..”There is no sin”…..it’s just a false belief……so why do we condemn each other with it? Is that what Jesus would have done? No! He loved Mary Magdalene and Healed her!
In response to Evan’s comment re. “Murder is a very serious evil and has horrible consequences.” Moses murdered a man and went on to be chosen by God to lead the People of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land. David had a man in his army killed so he could marry his wife and yet he was considered a very spiritual man and was forgiven by God. I think we need to be careful with talking about sin and punishment ……it sounds a lot like “old theology” to me! We don’t believe in certain sins being worse than others and having “horrible consequences” in Christian Science!
Hi Bevi – This is a big topic and I am not sure it can be fully answered here, but the idea that there are consequences for our thoughts and actions is the basis of demonstrating the Christ and Christianity. Jesus could see the Christ in each individual and lift out of their thought what was preventing them from seeing the Christ within that was already there in the first place, Jesus said “Go and sin no more”. He addressed the mistaken thought (sin) and forgave it and healed her.
If there was no sin, Jesus would not have been nailed to the cross. As we are really honest and watch our thinking moment by moment there are plenty of opportunities to reverse sinful thought. Impatience, frustration, hatred, jealousy, anger, fear, unkindness, to name a few examples of what distracts us from seeing our true Christly nature. Is the sin true about us? No, but we live out our thinking … hence the point of this topic, Error Creep, not to let it creep into consciousness. Evan mentions: “Error is a word used in Christian Science to designate anything that denies the reality of God. Disease, sin, and any other belief that results in suffering are examples of error.” Key word being “belief”. BTW Moses and David regretted their actions you mentioned and spent a lifetime serving God with humility, repentance and reformation, demonstrating who they really are, the Christ-man.
Agreed, Shelley, but they didn’t suffer “horrible consequences”! We don’t believe in “Karma” in C.S. and that’s what was implied by Evan’s comments re. “sin and horrible consequences.” That is “old theology” and is what has given Christianity and C.S. a bad name! Yes, people make mistakes, sometimes really Big Ones, but they are not doomed by God to suffer horrible consequences. In fact, God doesn’t even know about their “sins”! So how could he punish them? No, all human beings make mistakes and if they recognize them and make amends they are free to be set free from guilt and shame and to go on in complete freedom without suffering any “horrible consequences.”!! It’s WE who must learn to forgive ourselves! God never condemns!
Aw, Bevi, you totally misunderstood my comment about horrible consequences. I can see that you’re reading my answer from your point of view, not mine. By horrible consequences I meant the evil committed, the murder. Killing a person is pretty awful for the person murdered. That’s what I meant by horrible. Being murdered is a horrible consequence for the person murdered, I think. I wasn’t thinking about the person who committed the act, although, if they have any kind of conscience, I would hope that they at least regret their act. Some do, and some don’t. But as you say, God is a forgiving God and there’s a way to work out of any sin and be free. Many of my other blogs write about that.
No, Evan, you didn’t mean “the evil committed”, “the murder”, when you said “horrible consequences” above. You are trying to “back-pedal” a bit now and that’s not honest! You were talking about comparing the sin of murder to the sin of stealing a pencil. And how it’s easier to repent for the sin of stealing than it is for the sin of murder. Way too much “old theology” in all of this for me……we don’t focus on sin in Christian Science and compare sins or talk about how one sin is easier than another to pay for. Come On! Are Sin, Disease and Death REal? Sounds like you’ve got some issues from childhood with Sin and maybe carrying some guilt, etc.
Dear Bevi…When you read the comment you posted above, do you find any love being expressed? I’ve read this comment now a few times and frankly I can’t find any love being expressed. Shouldn’t all of our comments to this blog express love? Isn’t it always possible to express the point we want to make via this blog in a loving way?
Thank you Evan for the love you express to us each day through this blog and for providing a means through which we all can express love and help each other too! And thank you for all of the selfless work you do each day in your healing practice of Christian Science and in teaching Christian Science to others.
Brian, I very much am in tune with your above comment, and I think this is a blog of Love; and as its name sais : everything to be seen and understood from a spiritual point of view . We should always keep in mind that Love is the liberator!
Evan thanks for your loving correction, if something is understood falsely from one of us! 🙂
If there is no sin to contend with in human thought, why does Mary Baker Eddy admonish her students to pray daily…..
Thy kingdom come
Let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me,
and rule out of me all sin.
And may Thy word enrich the affections of all mankind and govern them.
Rule out of ME all sin. I pray often to be freed up of
self righteousness
self justification
self will
Boy, those self sins can wreck havoc in one’s “tent” because we are allowing human will to “direct traffic” instead of God. Doesn’t work very well! Love the camel story.
Thank you, Evan for addressing topics that make us think. This blog is such a force for good in human thought. I love it when you tackle tough subjects.