Article March 23, 1974 Issue

Identity: Your Key to Heaven

LUCILLE R. RUSHTON

Is identity important? Yes! Both in the human scene and the spiritual realm it is vital. In many large companies you can't get into your place of work without your ID card. No more can you find your place in God's kingdom without recognition of your spiritual identity. That is your key.

God knows you as He created you, namely, in His own likeness, spiritual, changelessly perfect, expressing the qualities of His perfection. This is your true and only identity now and forever. But are you aware of it? Or do you believe you are a mortal, subject to sin, disease, poverty, chance, injustice, sorrow, death? If you do, it is a case of mistaken identity. It is not true!

You can turn completely away from this false concept. You can renounce it and acknowledge your true identity, because "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."^{Isa. 43:10;} You can let divine Love enfold you and reveal to you the wonder of being Love's likeness. You can find yourself experiencing heaven right now, for heaven is a divine state of consciousness, not a locality. Mrs. Eddy says in her Miscellaneous Writings, "Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness."^{Mis., p. 185;}