Article April 13, 2020 Issue

Start, stay, stick, and stand with God

Judith Hardy Olson

From day one of my interest in Christian Science, I saw that Christianity is a whole lot more than sitting in a pew on Sunday and striving to be a good person. Christianity as exemplified by Christ Jesus included healing, and he equipped his disciples well for this work. He didn’t merely suggest that they heal the sick and sinning; he commanded them to, admonishing them, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) and, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

Jesus’ disciples became “doers” of what he had taught them. As a New Testament writer puts it in his letter to the early Christians, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves,” and, “Faith without works is dead” (James 1:22, 2:20). I love the New Living Translation’s rendition of that first verse: “Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves,” as well as a later one that tells us how: “If you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it” (1:25).

The perfect law that sets you free, I’ve come to realize, is divine Science—the spiritual law of Truth; and when it is practiced faithfully, it heals the sick as Christ Jesus healed. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered this Science of the Christ, wrote, “God’s law is in three words, ‘I am All;’ and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law” (No and Yes, p. 30).

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