Article February 28, 2011 Issue

A voice that constantly speaks to us

By Mari Grasso de Milone

This article was first printed in the online Heraldo de la Ciencia Cristiana (the Spanish edition of The Christian Science Herald).

The Gospel according to Matthew in the Bible tells us that, shortly after Christ Jesus began his ministry, he talked to the fishermen Simon and Andrew, and then James and John, who, along with their father, were mending their fishing nets. He told them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). And they instantly left everything behind and followed him.

Just as those fishermen heard Jesus calling out to them, we, too, can be receptive to the voice of the Christ speaking to us, and follow it. Jesus was inseparable from the Christ, the divine message from God to man. And the Christ, as the spiritual manifestation of God, is constantly speaking to our thought to give us the true perspective of the nature of God and our relationship to Him. The Christ shows the path that leads us away from preoccupation with personal concerns to finding satisfaction in the well-being of others. 

Are we willing to follow Christ? Perhaps this includes abandoning a false concept of ourselves or of those around us. It may be the belief that we are mortal, susceptible to all kinds of calamities, and that there is nothing we can do to avoid this. Jesus promised, “Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matt. 19:29). To me, this has come to mean that those who follow him will obtain a hundred times more because they will have grasped the right idea, the truth about things, and that will give them eternal life. This right idea is the spiritual fact that we are created by Spirit and are therefore spiritual, fulfilled, and perfect. And that, in reality, we are not subject to chance and change, but are forever sustained and loved by our heavenly Creator, God. Leaving behind nets of mistaken concepts, we obtain the true idea about everyone and everything that exists, and this is what it means to follow the Christ. 