Article April 4, 1931 Issue

Righteousness and Reward

LESTER B. MCCOUN

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Thus the Master laid down the order of the operation of divine law. Christian Scientists have proved that the voluntary seeking for the righteousness of God, when accompanied by the conscientious practice of the good revealed to them, is followed in their experience by divine blessings in proportion to their deserving. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 10): "Experience teaches us that we do not always receive the blessings we ask for in prayer. There is some misapprehension of the source and means of all goodness and blessedness, or we should certainly receive that for which we ask."

One early learns in Christian Science that not on account of our seeking and prayer does the law of God become operative for us, since this law is in reality an activity of divine Mind that is ever operating for all of God's creatures. Just as the boatman rows out into the stream to get the assistance of the current, so the true followers of Christ seek the spiritual consciousness and life in which the righteous activity of divine Mind already holds sway. They ask God for that which divine Mind does or gives, and not for something unlike infinite Love. Christian Science treatment is consentaneous to the law by which God and His creation exist at-one and act together in perfect harmony.

Effective prayer to God includes the ability to abide in Christ, and it requires us to think and live righteously in all the daily affairs. Mrs. Eddy writes (ibid.), "Prayer means that we desire to walk and will walk in the light so far as we receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and that waiting patiently on the Lord, we will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him." The effect of praying, of true thinking and living, is to bring one into conformity with the established law of God. The power of right thinking lies in the fact that true thoughts proceed from God and are inseparable from the good they produce. Thus the rewards of righteousness always attend true spirituality. To the extent, then, that one succeeds in reflecting God, good, to that extent he will be benefited. Any other concept of God's law would not be true.

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