Abundant Life

NATALIE G. FORCE

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is bringing to the world the fulfillment of Jesus' promise, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." It is furnishing to all who earnestly seek the truth a demonstrable knowledge of the Christ, Truth, that reveals this abundance as an ever present reality. God has never ceased to provide for the well-being of all His children; He has never ceased to pour out the riches of His love, and in the proportion that the Christ, referred to by Jesus, comes to the individual human consciousness, this abundance is realized, even in the midst of seeming lack.

In connection with Jesus' promise we must also accept his statement, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." And in this statement is revealed the fundamental truth that man's being is in Mind, not matter, and that Spirit is the only substance and reality. All the failure, poverty, and lack in human experience originates in the delusion that man's existence is dependent upon the preservation of a physical body, and that his supply is limited to the amount of matter which he possesses.

The widespread fermentation of world thought known as financial depression has exposed the utter futility of dependence upon mere material acquisition, and is arousing men, as never before, to the realization that real substance is spiritual, and is attainable only through right thinking. Whether the evidence before the physical senses is material wealth or poverty, it is not the truth about man, for man's real substance is found in his at-one-ment with God; and his true income is the spiritual ideas which never cease to emanate from infinite Mind. Realizing this is laying up "treasures in heaven" to be utilized, not at some future period, but here and now.

All the demonstrations of supply recorded in the Bible, which have generally been considered miraculous infractions of law, Christian Science explains as the natural and lawful outcome of right thinking; and viewed in this light they become practical guides in the solution of similar problems today. When it is understood that life is spiritually mental, not physical, and that all discord is the manifestation of false thinking, it will be seen that our need is primarily for spiritual understanding. There is always the right idea in Mind which is the law of destruction to any specific phase of error. Limitation and lack have no real cause or foundation, no law for their support; and when we understandingly maintain in thought the right idea of man's God-given abundance, it cannot fail to be expressed in ways that are suited to our present human needs.

During the period of awakening from a material to a spiritual sense of existence, we may encounter many trials, but our spiritual understanding is always to be seen as sufficient to meet our need, and it increases with use. Progress is the overcoming of material sense by spiritual sense, and, so considered, every circumstance in human experience becomes an opportunity for relinquishing counterfeit mortal beliefs for divine realities. We may have to take human footsteps that we should like to avoid, but Christian Science always enables us to take necessary steps with confidence in God's protection and guidance; and when we are really seeking "first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" we can confidently trust Him to guide and support us every step of the way. The mission of Christian Science is not to make the human dream pleasant, but to awaken us from the dream; and as we make these awakening experiences the occasions for spiritualizing our aspirations and desires, we enjoy unceasing proof of the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 494), "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."

The more abundant sense of life is coming constantly to those who are making the search for spiritual substance their first concern. The true Christian Scientist cannot be deflected from his course either by fear of financial lack or by submission to the false sense of pleasure in material affluence. With his gaze held firmly to divine reality he sees the impossibility of depending on materiality, and with the love of Spirit ever uppermost in his thought he refuses to submit to the counterfeit attractions of mortal mind. Through whatever phases of human experience he may be led, he moves ever onward to a fuller realization of life in God.

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