The Bible Speaks to You March 16, 1968 Issue

[The above is an abbreviated, postproduction text of the program released for broadcast the week of March 8-14 in the radio series, "The Bible Speaks to You." Heard internationally over more than 1,000 stations, the weekly programs are prepared and produced by the Christian Science Committee on Publication, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 02115.]

RADIO PROGRAM NO. 310 - "Stretch forth thine hand"

Questioner: People who are ill or severely disappointed in some way often feel withdrawn, cut off from those around them. I wonder if we could explore what Christian healing might have to offer them.
Speaker: Christian healing offers all that the Scriptures promise to those who learn to know God and come to trust Him. I'd say the basis of it is that it involves reaching out to God. This reaching out comes through a willingness to learn what God is and what we are as His ideas. And the spiritual enlightenment that follows is healing, healing in its broadest sense, healing of thought, soul, and body—a sense of man's wholeness.
Questioner: So you're holding out a real hope for persons who may he severely disappointed or hurt?
Speaker: Yes. But this demands something of the one who is seeking for this wholeness.

Questioner: What, primarily?
Speaker: It's a willingness to change the very basis of one's view of oneself. I'm not saying it's easy. But certainly as we come to accept God's presence and to realize that we're not doing this on our own, it doesn't seem so difficult as we thought at first.

The Bible brings this out. It says in Philippians (2:13), "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." But we must be willing to reach out. We must be willing, as it's put in Ephesians, to "put off ... the old man" (4:22) and "put on the new" (4:24)—this new concept of ourselves as ideas of God.
Questioner: There's no question but that most people want to be well. But I'd think that most of those in need of some kind of healing would feel that this is beyond their own ability.
Speaker: This is a very under-Standable point of view. But, you know. Christ Jesus gave us the answer in the Sermon on the Mount. He said (Matt. 7:7), "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." But, of course, those three promises each involves the individual's doing something. We have to ask, seek, knock. This is our reaching out.