All That the Father Hath

AMANDA STEPHAN

How deep is the meaning of the Master's words, "All things that the Father hath are mine"! In meditating upon them, we find that their proper understanding takes away from humanity all sorrow and suffering, for it refers to the true relation between God and man, and shows, as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 275), that "all substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God." All we have is from God, the dispenser of all good, and it is just because He is the source of all good, and of good only, that man can have no quality which is not in keeping with God's nature. Out text-book further says (p. 475) concerning this man, the real man to whom Jesus refers, that he "has not a single quality underived from Deity," and adds that he "possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker."

Jesus never claimed to possess anything which did not belong to his Father, but emphatically declared and affirmed, "All things that the Father hath are mine;" and if we strive earnestly to let that Mind be in us "which was also in Christ Jesus," we should ask ourselves the very important question whether we consider anything to be ours which does not belong to God. Do we ever acknowledge disease, sin, lack, or limitation of any kind as a part of us? Do we ever concede power to these errors, thereby identifying ourselves with them in our thought? or do we always separate them from man who is spiritual and forever above disharmony and decay, yea, who is the image and likeness of God, and is, was, and eternally will be that image, for God's order changeth not? In the Bible we read, "Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth."

Then, do we ever admit that man is material, made of matter, which is the exact opposite of Spirit, God? If we do, we claim something which is not of God, and serve error instead of serving Him; we serve the error of which Jesus said that it is "a murderer," and "a liar, and the father of it," while the apostle Paul writes, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"

"All things that the Father hath are mine," said Jesus, and these things must also be ours, for on another occasion his words were, "My Father, and your Father; ... my God, and your God." If, therefore, all that belongs to the Father is ours, there are no limits to our spiritual power. Spiritual man is the expression or reflection of God, and God is not limited. Christian Science teaches that this man reflects throughout eternity God's glory and infinite radiancy, illuming the universe through God's light, not through his own; for, as the psalmist says, "in thy light shall we see light;" and Paul writes in keeping with this thought, "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever."

The knowledge that all things which the Father hath are ours, frees us not only of the many and varied beliefs of lack and limitation, but also protects us from the loss of the smallest idea of our spiritual possession, for all such ideas are in God, who is omnipotence and eternally conscious of His own, and they, in turn, are secure in Him. God is never separated from His idea, but one with it. Just as the picture which we behold in the mirror is neither a property, a quality, nor a product of the mirror itself, but is in every respect wholly dependent upon that which is reflected, in the same manner the eternal reflection of God, spiritual man, rests wholly upon God, the divine Principle, of which the Bible says that with Him is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

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