Article March 14, 1925 Issue

"Heal the sick"

JENNIE LOUISE HASKELL

THE injunction, "Heal the sick," was given by Christ Jesus not only to his immediate disciples, but to all who should understand the Christ, Truth. In his teachings and example, as recorded in the Bible, and in the rules for spiritual healing to be found in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, all who are striving to demonstrate the healing power of Truth can find practical answers to the question, How is it possible to obey this great command to heal the sick?

First, what needs to be healed? Every belief in, or fear of, so-called material or physical law; every illusion of matter and disease as realities; every thought not in accord with God's spiritual law of life and health. To reflect the harmony of infinite being is health. Whenever that perfect harmony is marred or obscured. discord or disease results.

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Where should we heal the sick? First of all in our own consciousness. Jesus said, "Cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." And the same admonition is repeated by Mrs. Eddy on page 419 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes, "To succeed in healing, you must conquer your own fears as well as those of your patients, and rise into higher and holier consciousness."

When do we heal the sick? At the moment when our thought rises above the material to the incorporeal or Christly sense of existence, realizing the nothingness of disease and sin and the allness of health and harmony,—whenever through our own spiritual enlightenment we become a clear transparency for the light of Truth and divine Love. Mrs. Eddy has written (ibid., p. 495), "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God." A Christian Science healing is the appearing of the Christ to individual human consciousness; and the Christ, or Truth, enables one to perceive the real man and his perfect, harmonious existence in the boundless infinitude of spiritual bliss and purity.

The whole field of healing, then, is in the mental realm. What we know—the kind of thoughts we habitually hold—determines and controls our physical condition, surroundings, and circumstances. In order to realize health for ourselves and for others, we must see nothing but God's spiritual creation,—perfect, whole, and indestructible,—God's perfect spiritual ideas.

Spiritual consciousness, possessing the glorious vision of "a new heaven and a new earth," as seen by John,—the city that "lieth foursquare," into which nothing can enter that "defileth ... or maketh a lie,"—cannot know anything that suffers, is imperfect, diseased, or deformed. It is our privilege and right as God's children to see as God sees, to know as infinite wisdom knows, and to love by reflecting the divine Love that casts out all fear. To do this is to have that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," which enabled him to set aside every false material law,—to heal the multitudes of their diseases, to walk on the water, to turn the water into wine, to feed the hungry from the invisible spiritual source of supply, and to raise himself and others from the dream of death and the grave.

Jesus did not separate or classify the cases which were presented to him for healing. Those who came into his presence for healing were almost invariably made whole instantly. Why? Because he understood that there is only one Mind, which is ever active and which knows no sickness; that there is only spiritual sight, which never fails, and only spiritual hearing; that there is only the one divine Love, which enfolds all; that there is only the one Life, which is indestructible and eternal. The Christ, as demonstrated by Jesus, was the manifestation to humanity of that one Mind, Love, and Life. It was as impossible for sin, sickness, and death to remain in that mental atmosphere of pure spiritual understanding as for dark shadows to enter a room filled with light. Where all is light, darkness cannot exist for an instant. Where all is love, hate cannot show itself. Where all is health and harmony, disease and discord are unknown. Where all is life, the sense of death is annihilated. By the realization of this truth, and its demonstration, we begin to comprehend something of the "glorious liberty of the children of God," and to see lifted up before our vision the ideal of what constitutes perfect healing in the way Jesus commanded.

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Glad Service
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