ERROR AND SIN OVERCOME

Error is whatever seems to be and is not: it is erroneous opinion; it is false belief. To sin is to know that a thing is wrong yet do it, or to know a thing is right and not do it. The remedy for error is to know the truth; the remedy for sin is to live the truth. Mrs. Eddy says. "Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue" (Science and Health, p. 143). This is so self-evidently true that it does not need to be argued. The problem is to distinguish what error is and what the truth which destroys it. Every one recognizes that much which seems to be true, and is generally believed to be true, is false, is error. In the light of Christian Science, everything which denies the allness and goodness of God, — of Life, of Love, of Mind, of Spirit, of the Father and His perfect creation, — is error. In other words, Christian Science teaches that while discord seems real to the physical senses, God and all which He creates and governs, — and He creates and governs all things, — are all harmonious and have only to be seen and acknowledged as such to cause all discords to disappear, even to the senses. In like manner it teaches that while there seems to be death. God is Life, and all reality is the reflection of God; that nothing which lives ever dies: that while there seems to be much evil, the good is all which really exists.

Christian Science therefore makes truth, the knowledge and love of what is and conformity to it, the remedy for sickness and death as well as for every other phase of error or false belief. It teaches that to know, to acknowledge, to keep in mind, to abide in and act upon the consciousness of God as present and as good and as All-in-all, and that His creation is now and forever spiritual, perfect, and "every whit whole," is to be delivered from the sense of evil as well as from the love and the fear of evil. This utilization of the power of truth, to overcome error; of true understanding to overcome the belief; the knowledge of what is to overcome the belief in what seems to be and is not, — is Christian living or Christian Science practice. That this overcoming is the only true life-practice becomes self-evident as one becomes mentally, morally, and spiritually awakened. It is also proven to be true — that is, good — by the fruit that it bears, by the results it accomplishes. One cannot remain bound by the love and practice of evil, by the fear of sickness and death, nor by the fascination or the terror of any illusion, any longer than he believes in the reality of these illusions; and as God and His perfect creation, government, and love are seen to embrace all, truth, everything that is unlike God is seen to be untrue. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and as one abides in the Christ, in the consciousness of good, he cannot fail to know the truth.

Whatever may be the sin that claims to hold us, we can let it go. In fact, we have to let it go when we know that there is no pleasure in it, there is no success in it or for it, and nothing in it that we really want. Love for our true self, love for our neighbor, love for Christ, love for the truth, and love for God constrain us to command every harmful desire and purpose to get behind us and to stay behind us. We need to reach the point where we would prefer to seem to die resisting sin rather than seem to live yielding to it. But the most abundant and harmonious human sense of life, as well as real and eternal life, comes to light as one resists sin and overcomes evil with good. While in our human experience we have all sinned, we have all got to stop it; and happy for us if we stop it now.

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"NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS"
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