Article June 6, 1931 Issue

Dedication

JEKAB GREENBLAT

When active workers from different fields meet, the question is often heard, Have you dedicated your church yet? It is inspiring to observe with what joy and gratefulness the question is answered in the affirmative by all who have taken part in such a demonstration. Those who have had a share in this work can tell most interesting individual experiences which enabled them to bring the work to completion.

These experiences in many respects correspond with those of Nehemiah while he and those with him built up the walls of Jerusalem. They record, invariably, victories over the Sanballats, the Tobiahs, the Geshems, and all the rest of the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites, manifested as selfishness, fear, lack, discouragement, disease, doubt, envy, jealousy, and pride of place and power, all of which would hinder the completion of the work at hand. With grateful heart these workers relate how they had a mind to work; how they set a watch against all these errors; how they proved themselves wide-awake workers; how they were so busy doing God's work that they had no time to argue even for a moment with these enemies "in the plain of Ono." And, instead of coming down to the mental level of these enemies, they firmly declared, No! and then went on working. They recount how, having first dedicated themselves to God, they were able to dedicate their churches, and so prove Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 199), "The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible."

A dictionary defines "to dedicate" in part as "to set apart and consecrate to God." The consecration of one's self to God, then, is the keynote to the dedication of our church edifices. This consecration must, necessarily, be an individual demonstration of every member of the church. Therefore obedience to and the putting into practice of all our Leader has taught us about God are the surest and the quickest ways to success. This obedience is, indeed, the armor of God, which enables us to take a firm stand and fight successfully against every form of evil temptation within and without individual consciousness. Thus, with the individual consciousness dedicated to God, the work ceases to be mere labor and is seen as a joyous privilege to serve God. Desirous of making the good which has blessed them available to all, and in gratitude for healed bodies and regenerated lives, individuals band themselves into church organizations and erect edifices wherein all may worship the true God.

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