God's Law of Reward

BLYTHE KYSOR

God's law of reward is at hand. It is greater and more powerful than any limiting supposition to the contrary. It is flowing abundantly to all men all the time; and it never fails. It is always in operation; and no one is outside the action of this divine law. How to avail ourselves of it is the question that Christian Science answers.

Christian Science shows that God is a God of abundance; that He is good, and at hand. We become aware of the presence of God, good, through a better apprehension of spiritual reality, and also by being freed from the limitations of material thinking. We must define success as Jesus defined it, when he said, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Thus he described individual glory as of God, and as belonging to God's image and likeness throughout time and eternity. We must make this visible through living in conformity with the standards of true Christianity,—brotherly love, justice, righteous activity. We must dispel from our thinking the miasma of ambition for personal aggrandizement. Calm recognition that God's law of reward is at hand is far different from the ruthlessness and troubled strife of pride, worldly ambition for prestige, place, and power. It is also very different from the inertia of discouragement, with its belief in failure.

When men and women have been forced to give up personal ambition and thoughts of mere material prosperity, because of home or business duties, they should not feel there is no compensating reward. They do not need to suffer because of men's lack of recognition of their effort and accomplishments. They might, instead, be grateful for their freedom from the pressure of envy and hatred, which worldly success is so apt to carry with it. They can make use of their opportunity to renounce more of material selfhood, and to learn more of the grandeur of spiritual understanding. They can demonstrate the eternal qualities of intelligent loving activity, unselfishness and goodness. They can know that their reward is at hand. It does not need to come after the manner of the world's outlining; it can and will come in God's own way. It is not in the future. Reward is a right idea; and it is therefore, necessarily, always at hand—at hand even now.

In Jesus' day there were many who received the world's rewards. But who knows or cares for their accomplishments now? His humble, faithful disciples, who profited by his example, had more of grandeur than the so-called great of their day; and the disciples' names live long after the others have been forgotten. There is always true grandeur in nobility of thought, in self-sacrifice, in loving service, however obscure. The very doing of the duty at hand, the relinquishing of personal ambition, teaches humility. This humility makes way for a broader humanity, and for a greater reliance upon and utilization of God's power. Self-pity, self-depreciation, and self-condemnation have no place in true humility. One who is prayerfully and conscientiously doing his duty is being purified of selfishness and willfulness; and this enables him to perceive and demonstrate God's law of commendation. This purification is the true exalting, lifting up the life and work of the one purified. A steady effort to learn more of divine goodness, to express it in thought and life, gives a strength that nothing else can. When trials come, there is the knowledge of how to turn to God; of how to demonstrate God's loving care for mankind; and a tried faith, which does not falter. When success comes, there is the same calm faith, based on an understanding of Principle, and not upon the limited sense of personal achievement, with its accompanying fear of failure.

The reward which comes to men from God is found in the ability to speak with authority to evil; in a condition of usefulness and blessedness. It is not our necessity to seek for reward. Our need is to be worthy of reward; and when we are worthy, the God of justice bestows it upon us. Jesus stated a fundamental truth when he said, "Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly;" and Mrs. Eddy, whose life was one of self-sacrifice and victory, stated the same truth when she said in "No and Yes" (p. 3), "How good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so much thine own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-weary, and trust Love's recompense of love."

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