Living to bless others—could there be a more exalted motive for a fulfilling life? Picture a world filled with people whose deepest desire is to bless others! Wouldn't that be the solution to some of the destructive egocentrism behind much of the serious personal and global problems facing humanity today? Wouldn't it help to remove frustration, quiet fear, establish balanced relationships, and as a result, bring about healing?

Global happiness resulting from a common, deep desire to bless others may seem to be a goal that hardly can be achieved in an often turbulent world. Yet, even if it's hard to achieve collectively, adopting it in our individual lives is a good place to start. The selfless motive to live for blessing others can bring about radical changes for good, and each individual change will eventually have an important impact worldwide as well.

To me, the study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount offers all we need for blessing others. Throughout the sermon (see Matt., chaps. 5-7), Jesus speaks about different types of relationships. He explains how to view others constructively, how to treat them respectfully, and how to respond in a balanced way to what they say and do. He tells us about the need to relinquish egocentrism—to look at things not only from the perspective of our own personal needs but also from the perspective of others, to see their individual needs and meet them.

Jesus also makes clear that mental and physical health require a balanced state of mind, which includes freedom from narrow-mindedness and the ability to see situations in their broader context—to embrace the whole society, even the full global community, in our affections instead of pursuing personal interests alone.

As a healer, Jesus showed the importance of understanding what's going on in another person's heart. Since each individual is part of one big whole, our life-experience can only be blessed if we live our lives with loving interest for the good of all. Withdrawing into self-concern, on the other hand, brings limitation. "Let no one seek his own, but each one the other's well-being," said St. Paul, a devoted follower of Jesus' model (I Cor. 10:24, New King James Version).

CONSISTENTLY EXPERIENCING GOD'S GRACE

Jesus also taught that the experience of God's grace can be constant, not just occasional. By his own example he showed that the ability to benefit others is the natural outcome of realizing our innate oneness with God. As our prayers enable us to recognize and feel more of the ever-presence of God as Spirit and Love, and our unity with Him, the result will be a more consistent ability to bless. The heart animated in seeking to feel Love's presence cannot help but care more inclusively for all of God's creation.

Jesus placed great value on the First Commandment—"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). Faithfully following this means loving and adoring divine Love as the "centre and circumference of being" (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 204).

To obey the command in this way causes us to express God's goodness and love more naturally and habitually, and that, in turn, blesses us. I've seen this happen. The more I've endeavored to live a love that's free from egocentrism, letting God's all-embracing love govern me, the more I've experienced His wonderful blessings and grace—as guidance, protection, inspiration, creativity, and in the development of friendships and work assignments that spread the blessings.

I can say with the Bible, "The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it" (Prov. 10:22, NKJV). Jesus expressed it this way: "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you" (Luke 6:38, NKJV).

So, not only do we need to live to bless, we need the blessings that accrue from our own expression of divine Love in order to live!

DO WE HAVE TO EARN GOD'S BLESSINGS?

The sun shines on all, and each sunbeam illuminates the place on which it shines. Sunbeams don't compete for place or purpose, and they don't make the light themselves. Nor can they be separated from the sun that sends them out. Likewise, God's individual expressions, the man and woman of His creating, need not compete for blessings. They just need to realize they are always connected to their source, and don't have a goodness, love, light, or intelligence of their own. Divine Love is the only and impartial originator of good.

There is no cause for rivalry or destructive competition in divine Love. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered the Principle of Christ-healing in Christian Science, saw this clearly. She wrote, "Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters'" (Science and Health, p. 13).

Our true identity as God's image is always one with the blessings of goodness, and we never need to acquire or earn our spiritual identity. The ignorant, human sense of things, however, sometimes hides this truth, and this can result in frustration, and then in a feeling of distance from goodness, from God. When that occurs, the need is to relinquish the mistaken belief that we're separated from goodness, and through prayer, to establish a conscious awareness of our oneness with the Love that is God. It's out of this unity with God that we naturally act in ways that bring blessing and benefit society.

CONSTANT BLESSINGS NORMAL

Is it, in fact, normal to feel constantly blessed, and to meet life's challenges with the expectation of belssing? Yes. In fact, no other attitude is divinely normal. The divine Life is always good and complete—a constant source of blessing and of inspiration for ways to benefit others.

Through what I've come to understand to be a law of Life—that God's goodness is natural, constant, and ever evolving—I've been blessed with many opportunities for sharing spiritual insights.

Among other things, I participated in a civic action group involving sociologists, doctors, and parents of drug addicts who voluntarily worked together for helping young people overcome their enslaving habits. On one occasion, I had an opportunity to pray with a man who was addicted to hard drugs. We met together for a whole year, praying together about his place in life—looking for a way for him to feel valuable to society and have a meaningful life.

He and I found that only by discovering one's true selfhood as the expression of God can we really be free. Through prayer we corrected the false concept of man as a matter-bound, self-existing, isolated being. Instead, we realized that everyone belongs to God's family and has access to His blessings of love, intelligence, and support. My friend was completely freed from drug addiction and from his smoking habit. He finished his education, eventually earning a master's degree at a European college of art. Since then, he's had art exhibitions all over the world. He lives a life devoted to blessing others through his art.

More recently, a friend, who is a concert pianist, woke up on the day of a performance with symptoms of a severe cold. She could have canceled the concert, but instead she chose to go to the concert hall and prepare to perform. She realized that she could do something about the symptoms by praying about her state of thought.

So, she prayed to be sure she was not being governed by egocentrism—that she wasn't there to perform for applause or praise. Instead, she felt a deep and loving desire to bless others with the talent God had given her, a gift that she felt could inspire others and impart joy. She refused to acknowledge any other power besides God, and this prayer of faithfulness, she told me, gave her fresh strength.

By the time the concert was to begin, the cold symptoms had completely gone. She walked out on the stage in freedom and played with inspiration. Even several weeks after that concert, people who'd been in the audience were still talking about the joy and inspiration they had gained from the music.

BLESSING OTHERS WITH BLESSINGS RECEIVED

My friends' healings have given others encouragement and hope. Christian Science offers many means of spreading blessings—in weekly church testimony meetings, through writing for periodicals like this one, and through involvement in activities aimed to meet community needs. Also, people can certainly share the good they've received by helping others through prayer, or in other ways that God reveals to them individually through prayer.

I've found that neglecting to share the good in life can result in stagnation, as fear or passivity block the channels of giving. But an outgoing love always inspires and advances new ideas. In the Bible, God promises, "I will bless you ... and you shall be a blessing" (Gen. 12:3, NKJV). God gave this promise to Abraham, yet it expresses a spiritual law that applies to all who, like Abraham, are devoted to serving God.

Those words have been with me since I was a child. I was taught that God's blessings come into our lives when we keep our thinking receptive to the power of divine Love and express it ourselves. I believe in the spiritual power of spreading our blessings.

To me, that has meant mentally guarding myself against egocentrism and partiality. It means caring for the needs of others beyond one's own family and church circle. It requires striving for humility and recognizing divine Love's constant presence and might.

As a result of this discipline, the blessings of steady inspiration, clearer perception, expansive use of talents, and a broad range of interesting activities have come into my life. I've seen convincing proof that a loving willingness to share God's belssings brings freedom from limitation. Like no other commitment we might make, living to bless others brings us the blessings of an abundant life! css