Praise and Sacrifice

NELLIE C. COLE

Solomon said, "Who am I then, that I should build him [God] an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?" As Christian Scientists we realize with increasing humility that when we desire to build a church to the worship of God, whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain," we can come together to build and use it only as we praise Him by actively using the good qualities He has given us. We must sacrifice on the alter of humble, grateful obedience to Him every belief that is unlike good; give up, by the power of His ever present love, every erroneous thought, and in His strength cast down "imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God," and bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

Fear is no part of God, Love; human willfulness, ignorance, all of the least and greatest forms of sin and disease, are no part of God; so in order to build in harmony a temple to Him we, as children of divine Love, must reflect or express only the qualities of gratitude, praise, and obedience. The more we humbly turn toward the source of all good for wisdom, guidance, courage, strength, substance, health harmony, the stronger becomes our desire to praise God and put into practice the good thoughts that must continually come from this source. Thereby do our desire and ability grow proportionately stronger to sacrifice, or let go, all the false beliefs of our daily human thinking, which bring discordant or diseased conditions to the body, to our environment, to our business or social relations.

Jesus steadily proved the sincerity of his praise and gratitude to God in his everyday living by humbly accepting and using the perfect thoughts of God; and thus he demonstrated the real substance of goodness, life, and health to be right where evil, lack, disease, death claimed to be. We too must stand this test of our praise to God, and of our desire to live His thoughts. With what measure of humility are we ready to acknowledge the power of Love to help us sacrifice our faults and false beliefs? How willing are we to lay down the daily human thinking that is unlike the "altogether lovely" and loving? Thus only, however, can we see increasing harmony of health and peace come into our lives.

When the revelation of this glorious heritage which Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, so completely proved, came to our dear Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, she too proved her praise to God and desire to help and bless others by sacrificing the lesser things for the truth. With steadfast courage and patience from God to press on in the face of all opposition, prejudice, and misunderstanding, she also was enabled to see the love of God unfold the fruits of sacrifice in innumerable blessings to the human race—blessings of unfolding health, holiness, and happiness. First in her own experience Mrs. Eddy saw it brought God's healing from the effects of a so-called fatal accident; afterward in the experience of many others she also proved the truth of the declaration in Psalms, "I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy has written (p. 54): "That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin-filled human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love," Thus Mrs. Eddy has shown us, through explanation of the way Christ Jesus lived, how to realize in increasing measure our present and eternal unity with the source of all good, manifesting itself in health, harmony, and the betterment of all human experience.

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