Life-preserving faith
For the Lesson titled "Life" from July 15 - 21, 2013
“Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust” (Psalms 16:1 , Responsive Reading) is a prayer at the heart of this week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Life.” Abram puts his trust in God to “shew me the path of life” (Psalms 16:11 , RR). To avoid strife between his herdmen and Lot’s, he humbly allows Lot to choose what land he prefers for his people (see Genesis 13 , citation 3). Lot chooses the plains of Jordan because they appear to him well watered, full of promise. As history played out, Abram and his seed prospered in Canaan, while Lot’s land was eventually destroyed.
Abram’s faith in God’s life-preserving power had nothing to do with the look of the land. His trust in the divine, as opposed to the material appearances, illustrates Mary Baker Eddy’s point that the Life divine is “Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living …” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 14 , cit. 1). This consciousness gives us dominion over the whole earth, as it did Abram (who was later given the name Abraham).
Long after Abraham, Paul stated in Galatians that Abraham’s seed shall receive this same understanding of God, but now the understanding is revealed to those who are united by faith in Christ (see 3:16, 29 , cit. 4). For those who accept Christ become heirs to the covenant God made with Abraham to care for his seed. Jesus Christ fulfilled that covenant by giving humankind the true idea of God and of eternal life (see I John 5:20 , cit. 9). Consciousness of our true spiritual existence enables us to give up limiting material beliefs and admit the immortal facts of being (see Science and Health, p. 428 , cit. 9). The fact is that we are created in the image and likeness of our Father-Mother, God (see Genesis 1 , cit. 10). As His offspring, we have the understanding of divine Life, which gives us dominion over material beliefs.
Jesus exercised this dominion over beliefs in sickness, sin, and death by his understanding that life is independent of matter and that man truly lives, moves, and has his being in infinite Life (see Science and Health, p. 381 , cit. 13, and p. 200 , cit. 14). Jesus demonstrated control over the errors of mortal belief when he healed the man possessed with an unclean devil (see Luke 4 , cit. 14). His authority came from his understanding that Life is God, therefore immortal and harmonious, not subject to the errors of mortal mind. This great truth of Life silenced the discord of the demoniac.
Further, Jesus proved the life-preserving power of understanding spiritual existence when he healed the centurion’s servant (see Luke 7 , cit. 17). His works weren’t mysterious phenomena. Rather, they were practical proofs of a truth applicable to “all the phenomena of existence” (Science and Health, p. 429 , cit. 21). Jesus showed us the way to understand man as God’s likeness, “perfect as the Father, indestructible in Life, ‘hid with Christ in God’ ” (Science and Health, p. 325 , cit. 22).
Understanding man’s immortal life, Jesus gave his disciples the power to heal all manner of disease (see Matthew 10 , cit. 18). We, too, can exercise this power. We can “rise in the strength of Spirit” and “speak to disease as one having authority over it” (Science and Health, p. 393 , cit. 27, and p. 395 , cit. 24), and thus reach the harmony and immortality of eternal Life.
