Article March 23, 1957 Issue

SUBSTANCE AND HONOR

JOHN H. COURTNEY

Throughout human history there have been mighty struggles to see who or what should be greatest. Many individuals express a driving desire to rise to higher levels of society, wealth, or power, or to outdo others in material things and personal superiority. Because of a false concept of values, one may work vigorously for material wealth and personal aggrandizement, giving little thought to the gaining of spiritual wealth or to the recognition which comes from being Christlike and demonstrating the power of God. Christ Jesus had no material wealth and was rejected by his fellow men generally, but he gained the widest, highest, and most lasting recognition of any individual in all history. He accomplished this because of his spiritual superiority to all evil, his unselfish and all-inclusive love, and his ability to demonstrate good wherever and whenever needed.

To the materially minded, superiority and wealth may mean personal glory and perishable gold, while to the spiritually enlightened these mean something far greater. They mean honor and true substance—imperishable, impersonal, and eternal. Real honor and substance are spiritual. They evidence God because they are good. Hence, they are not mortal or material.

If wealth is good, it must be of God; therefore it is not material but spiritual, not temporal but eternal, not uncertain and perishable but certain and imperishable. Genuine wealth lies in spiritual understanding. We learn through the inspired teachings of Christian Science that abundance is made manifest in human experience through the understanding of wealth as spiritual substance. Did not Christ Jesus say (Matt. 6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"? And Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468), "Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay."

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