Article October 22, 1990 Issue

Identification with spiritual perfection

What we identify with makes all the difference in the world to our health, happiness, and ability to help others.

Marcia Page Wiesendanger

Have you ever found yourself saying, like the man in Mark's Gospel, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief"? There was a parent in great anguish because his son was suffering from what appeared to be epilepsy. He related the physical symptoms to Jesus and then said, "If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us." Jesus replied, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." It was at this point that the father made his anguished plea for help. He recognized his need to be healed of unbelief.

The father apparently did not totally reject or disbelieve the teachings of Jesus and his ability to heal. He did believe, but, to the materialistic thought, the evidence of the physical senses was convincingly real. Wasn't the father's real need to know himself? How could he behold his child's sonship with God if he himself was not aware of his own sonship? In other words, he needed to identify himself and his son with the spiritual sonship that Christ Jesus presented, which exemplifies man's unity with God.

Here is an all-important question we must decide if we are to obey the Biblical command to love our neighbor as ourselves: "Am I identifying myself as God's son or with the mutations of materialism—birth, growth, decline, and death?"

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