Article May 21, 1949 Issue

"To make sacred, or to surrender to Deity": new insight into sacrifice brings healing

"A LIVING SACRIFICE"

HENRY J. F. COE

It is interesting to note that the word "sacrifice" is made up of two Latin words: sacer, meaning sacred, and facere, to make. So one might interpret its meaning to be: to make sacred, or to surrender to Deity.

What a vista of joyous activity opens before us as it becomes apparent through the study of Christian Science that sacrifice to God is not some disagreeable self-deprivation of blessings, but the relinquishment of false human concepts of ourselves, our thoughts, our activities, our lives. It is consciously putting ourselves under God's government, surrendering human will, opinions, and desires to His gracious and beneficent control. This true sense of sacrifice does not involve loss, but rather places us in direct contact with blessings innumerable and immeasurable. True sacrifice, which makes sacred to God everything of which we are conscious, is thus seen to be a continuous activity of joyous growth heavenward.

The importance of true sacrifice is referred to on page 11 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Here God's revelator to this age, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, "We know that a desire for holiness is requisite in order to gain holiness; but if we desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it."

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