Article August 27, 2018 Issue

Obeying God with all our heart

Alexandra Hawley

Christ Jesus provided holy guidelines for anyone who endeavors to follow him in day-to-day discipleship. Key among these are the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew, chaps. 5–7) and two commandments—to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and to “love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). These treasured teachings, when followed sincerely and wholeheartedly, lead to healing solutions for situations we come across in our lives, and supply perfect guidance for making decisions.

When we need to make a decision, for example, the fourth line in the Lord’s Prayer—“Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10)—can be a powerful guide to the best course. In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, gives the spiritual sense of this passage. It reads, “Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme” (p. 17). To follow God’s will involves acknowledging and yielding to His supreme power, which brings a wonderful sense of freedom from material ways of thinking and related limitations.

We can trust God’s will and guidance totally because of the nature of God. The Bible tells us that God is Love (see I John 4:8), and we can be assured that because divine Love is invariable and all-inclusive, Love’s will for each of us is always good, perfect, harmonious. Since God is the source of all intelligence, He provides for every detail of His creation. And as we yield to divine intelligence and acknowledge that we reflect it as God’s spiritual creation, we are inspired to take appropriate actions in our lives. In order to obey God and do His will, we open our thought to God’s ideas as well as to expressing His qualities—such as love, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, and patience—and attributing all power to Him. As we do this, we’re led to actions that bless.

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