Article August 4, 1951 Issue

A SPECIFIC ANSWER TO PRAYER

BESSIE L. CARN

CHRIST JESUS, our great Exemplar, said (Matt. 6:6), "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." In elucidating Jesus' words, Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 15): "The closet typifies the sanctuary of Spirit, the door of which shuts out sinful sense but lets in Truth, Life, and Love. Closed to error, it is open to Truth, and vice versa. The Father in secret is unseen to the physical senses, but He knows all things and rewards according to motives, not according to speech."

As the student of Christian Science gains a scientific understanding of God's allness as infinite Mind, or Spirit, and man's spiritual, perfect, and immortal status as the son of God, he is awakened to the recognition that since Mind is the one supreme intelligence, his spiritual selfhood expresses, or reflects, this one all-knowing Mind, the same Mind reflected by Christ Jesus. Thus spiritually enlightened, he perceives that every right thought, every spiritual desire and pure motive which he entertains, emanates from divine Mind, the source of all good, and consequently is endued with spiritual power.

That Jesus knew God to be the source of all intelligence and goodness is indicated in his humble statements (John 5:19), "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," and (Matt. 19:17), "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." The secret of Jesus' power over evil was his conscious oneness, or unity, with the Father and the knowledge that in destroying sin, disease, death and other mortal discords he was acting in obedience to God's will.

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