Leaving All for Christ

SARAH V. CORNELIUS

From the moment of his first glimpse of the glorious light of Christian Science, the student is started towards the goal of complete separation from matter. This release takes place gradually but irresistibly as each erroneous material concept is replaced by the true or spiritual one. In speaking of the vanishing from consciousness of the dream of material existence, Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 77), "This period will be of longer or shorter duration according to the tenacity of error." Progress is painless or seemingly painful according to the acceptance of or resistance to the truth that continued study is inevitably unfolding in one's consciousness. Each trial may be regarded as evidence that some either consciously or unconsciously cherished false belief has been challenged by the truth that is being assimilated, and can no longer hide away and call itself a part of the student's consciousness. "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (Science and Health, p. 463); but the struggle experienced by the student, in this removing of error, is occasioned by the resistance of the material sense which is clinging to false concepts generally or individually accepted, while the growing understanding cannot tolerate this obstruction to progress.

In giving up all for Christ we find that it is only the shadowy, the fleeting, the unworthy, the unreal, from which we must turn away; that nothing real, or beautiful, or desirable, or true can we possibly lose. Through a divinely ordered change of values we find worldly attractions growing less, and "the things that are God's" taking proper place in our hearts and lives.

In a deepening understanding of the wide meaning of Christianity or Christian practice we learn the true joy set before us in our Leader's statement on page 238 of our textbook, "He who leaves all for Christ forsakes popularity and gains Christianity." As we surrender self-will, the law underlying the Psalmist's words, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me," governs every detail of our thinking and its resultant conditions in our home, church, and world relationships, so that we find no vacuum in our thought as it is being changed from the unreal to the real.

We learn to be willing to leave the material concept of brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children; for in gaining the true sense of our Father-Mother God we find the only real relationship between God's children—that of brother man. We grow towards the willingness to give up the false, human concept, as did Abraham in surrendering Isaac, and thereby find the real children of God's creating, who never were born into seeming danger or sin. We learn to be willing to turn away from believing in person, place, or thing as the source of our wealth and happiness, replacing this untruth with the truth that infinite Love equips man and maintains him at the point of perfection continuously. Is it too much for us to expect to utilize this perfect equipment in our work of demonstrating perfection?

What a glorious giving up of false beliefs this is when the limitless abundance of Love begins to dawn in consciousness! It takes but the acknowledgment of this fact of Love's infinitude to make us realize that we are its instant beneficiaries. When we sum up the blessings received in this giving up, in this gradual exchange of the unreal for the real, or the humanly distorted concept for the God-created reality, what gratitude wells in our hearts for the Love that is God! Who would not give up grief for joy, weakness for strength, discord for harmony, death for Life? All good is what the harvest will be, the divinely natural result of putting God first in our thoughts and lives. With our eyes turned towards this goal we shall recognize each problem as an opportunity to draw farther away from matter and nearer to God.

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The Measure of Man

December 9, 1933

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