Working Out One's Salvation

HELEN J. PORTER

One cannot work out his own salvation without the resultant benefit and helpfulness to all who come within the radius of his thoughts and acts. While it is exclusively his own salvation that he is compelled to work out, yet it is impossible to work out his salvation selfishly. For in compliance with the Bible's injunction in this respect, the working out of one's salvation is the coming out of every phase of selfishness—every false sense of self. In short, it is the unselfing of a mortal—the elimination of all claims to a power, life, or intelligence apart from God, good, through the understanding of Truth, whereby man's true selfhood is revealed.

Freedom, or salvation, is what mortals are constantly seeking but often it is sought through material means. As Mrs. Eddy says of one seeking thus (Science and Health, p. 427), "Spirit is his last resort, but it should have been his first and only resort." And so in the majority of cases it is some form of bondage or suffering and the failure to find surcease through material methods and cures that ultimately compel one to seek the truth that alone makes free.

As one reads the Bible he finds that he is not only enjoined to take upon himself the working out of his own salvation but he also finds the plan or method clearly set forth in these words of Jesus, "If ye continue in my word ... ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Since it is Truth, or the knowledge of Truth, that makes free, it is readily evident that if one is experiencing suffering, disease, or any discordant condition, it is not the effect of Truth or anything that is true, but something he has believed and, voluntarily or involuntarily, accepted as true.

One of the most tenacious and general phases of human bondage is fear. On being accused of being afraid, many might quickly resent such an accusation; yet if they should analyze thought they would no doubt recall many instances wherein fear had apparently taken possession of them. Some people are afraid to eat this or that particular kind of food; are afraid of germs, of the weather, the atmosphere; afraid that they will lose health, strength, wealth, position, or some material possession. Besides fear, mortals find themselves slaves to such erroneous and false beliefs as jealousy, envy, lust, malice, and so on. And strive as one may, he cannot be freed from any claim of a power, life, or intelligence apart from God, except through a demonstrable knowledge of Truth, of God, good.

We read in the Bible that God made all that was made, "and without him was not any thing made that was made." Therefore that which is called evil—sin, disease, death—has in reality no creator; it never was made. As we begin to understand that fact, we begin to disbelieve in all that claims something besides God and His creation, and so to deny or reject the testimony of the material senses, which always testify to something which supposedly proceeds from some other source than from the one divine creator.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Where spiritual understanding, or the understanding of Truth, is ruling as one's consciousness, it is ruling out all that which is false and untrue—all that worketh or maketh a lie, and a man finds himself in present possession of his God-given heritage and freedom.

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