Self-respect is an ingredient essential to our happiness and health. Whatever our position in life or our activity, we need to know clearly who we are and to have respect for ourselves in a way that commands respect from others for that self. But if our respect for ourselves is to have the backing of Truth, we must understand who we really are. Paul wrote, "If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." ^{Gal. 6:3;}

We can never be something outside of the Christ. The Christ, Christian Science teaches, is the true idea of God, whom man reflects. God is Life, Truth, and Love. As we understand ourselves to be God's reflection, and as we live our human life in demonstration of the Christ, Truth, we express the true idea.

Disease is no part of the true idea of Life, Truth, and Love. It is no part of the real man. It is no part of our true selfhood. Sin also is no part of the real man and no part of our true selfhood. If we understand something of our true identity as God's idea, and if we devote our human energies to the business of living up to the ideal of that selfhood, we can have respect for ourselves as earnest Christians. And as we come to understand the relationship to our health of our devotion to life in Christ, Truth, we gain respect for ourselves as Scientists of the Christ, Christian Scientists. But insofar as we think of ourselves as mortals trying to be better than other mortals, we have more self-righteousness than self-respect, and our pleas for healing lack the ring of truth.

The action of the Christ, Truth, silences self-righteousness. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy defines "Christ" as "The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." ^{Science and Health, p. 583;} Many of our sufferings are little more than some form of self-righteousness resisting the healing action of the Christ.

Take, for example, certain annoyances that seem to recur consistently. There are some kinds of people perhaps we cannot stand or certain things that some individuals do that annoy us, or perhaps we are impatient when we are kept waiting, or we feel crushed when someone speaks to us in a condescending tone. Does God, the infinite Mind, Life, Truth, Love, know such annoyances? Can the real man, God's reflection, feel such annoyances? And if we respect ourselves as individuals who are in all honesty striving to understand ourselves as ideas of the infinite Mind, should we react to such annoyances?

Can we not, on the other hand, see every threat to the harmony of our being as an opportunity to rise higher in the understanding of who we really are, to demonstrate the love, the patience, the understanding that shows our true selfhood, and to feel the support of the action of the Christ as we do so?

Self-righteousness finds its root in materiality. It is a material personality asserting itself, often in the name of righteousness and often with a claim to spirituality. But the emphasis is always on person—one person being right and the other wrong—a view that can be had only from the standpoint of materiality.

An understanding of God and man reveals the harmony and perfection of all of Mind's ideas, and one who is honestly striving for this understanding will recognize the temptation to think in terms of right and wrong personality as an opportunity to rise above materiality and gain a more spiritual view of himself and of others.

Mrs. Eddy says, "In some way, sooner or later, all must rise superior to materiality, and suffering is oft the divine agent in this elevation." ^{p. 444 .} The action of the Christ heals. As we come to understand the Christ, our true selfhood as God's ideas, we are healed of both sin and disease. Both are expressions of the false belief that we are material personalities rather than spiritual ideas.

We are usually willing to be healed of our sufferings, but not so willing to be healed of our self-righteousness. This inconsistency in many instances interferes with our healing of disease or other discord. But as we learn to draw a clear line between self-respect and self-righteousness, and as we put into practice a genuine desire to live as ideas of Life, Truth, and Love, we find that we stand above all that would annoy and upset or crush our sense of ourselves.

We reflect the Life that is above reproach and above uncertainty. We reflect the Truth that is untouched by injustice, that is never at the mercy of others' thoughts, but reflects the mercy of Truth itself. We reflect the Love that never reacts to unloving acts but only loves. We have a stature that is bigger than hurts, that is above materiality, yet enjoys the truth of every individual as God's perfect idea. As we gain respect for our true selfhood, we find that we are able to overcome sin and disease in ourselves and in others. We can heal.

Carl J. Welz