Article December 22, 1934 Issue

God the Only Giver

MAY LILIAN SPURWAY

When Christ Jesus said to his disciples shortly before his betrayal, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you," he also declared his unity with God, an important fact which he voiced on another occasion in the words, "I and my Father are one." Jesus constantly realized that God is the only Giver, and it was because he always identified his spiritual selfhood — the Christ — with the one I AM, that he was able to do his marvelous works and to bring healing and comfort to a suffering world. He claimed no power for himself, saying emphatically, "I can of mine own self do nothing," and he continually turned men's thoughts away from himself and gave all the glory to God.

Jesus is our Exemplar. We too, then, need to realize that, as Mrs. Eddy has expressed it (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 57), "All must be of God, and not our own, separated from Him." Man, she tells us (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 475), "has not a single quality underived from Deity." Therefore, however much we long to give to others, we must see that we can do so only as we reflect divine Mind. Starting with that premise, how boundless may be our giving! For God gives us all — a truth we find illustrated in the words of the father to the elder son, in Jesus' story of the prodigal, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." All the qualities and attributes that make up the divine nature — love, truth, mercy, justice, peace, patience, purity, wisdom, understanding — all of these, in abundant measure, man expresses by reflection; and man cannot cease giving, since such giving is God's means of expressing His own divine nature.

Such a concept of true giving does away with any false sense of responsibility. It is God who blesses. He meets the need of each one. What we have to do is simply to listen, to wait on Him; for so He guides us to express His qualities towards one another. As we know this, each one of us will be proving that he is perpetually in his right place, doing his right work; and the light of Truth will be seen as shining everywhere, lighting up all the dark places of the earth, dispelling mortal misconceptions with the omnipresence of spiritual ideas.

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