Claiming Our Divine Heritage

KURT E. FRITSCH

Some time ago one student of Christian Science asked another how he should claim his divine inheritance. By way of illustration, the one questioned pointed to the case of some individual who has inherited a fortune, money, securities, and other possessions. How can such a one use it if he has not been informed that these things have been left to him? And being informed, how can he use them until and unless he claims them and makes them his own? He must learn of the inheritance, claim it, and make it his in order to enjoy and use it.

Thus it is in our experience as Christian Scientists. We cannot demonstrate the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience of God for ourselves and others unless and until we accept the truth of being; that is, claim our spiritual heritage as the child of God, created in His likeness, completely, definitely, eternally existing at the standpoint of perfection.

Christ Jesus beautifully illustrated this fact of spiritual sonship in his parable of the prodigal son. When, in the narrative, the elder brother expressed his dissatisfaction because the younger son, who had erred, was welcomed home, the wise father responded with the comforting words, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." Is not this statement applicable today, in our everyday activities? Do we not in our true selfhood, as children of God, possess through reflection all that the Father bestows? God withholds nothing from His children. Let us then claim our divine heritage, which is spiritual and indestructible, not subject to loss, chance, change, or decay, and which is ours through eternity, by realizing our at-one-ment with the Father, our inseparability from God.

Man's divine heritage, his at-one-ment with God, was recently proved when a student of Christian Science was called to help one who was stricken with sudden illness. Christian Science treatment was at once undertaken, man's unbroken inseparability from God was vehemently declared, and his birthright as the child of God claimed. In a few minutes the illusion was dispelled, even as a dream ceases upon awakening, and the one who had believed himself to be ill arose refreshed and free from discomfort.

Under such circumstances it is particularly strengthening to realize that we are not striving for a victory over something actual, but that the real man is always at the standpoint of perfection. When we cease to bear witness to falsity, error disappears from our consciousness. We can realize that as the child of Truth we are not a witness to error, to that which is ungodlike; and by refusing to be such a witness, by claiming our sonship with the Father, we prove that we are not governed by error, and consequently the error must cease to appear in experience. In being at one with God, we testify to Truth, and our consciousness is emptied of all false, counterfeit claims which try through mortal mind to usurp the creative power of God, the only cause and creator, divine Love. False beliefs, illusions, are but false claimants to our rightful divine heritage.

On page 5 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mary Baker Eddy gives to the world these assuring words: "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives."

Let us be thorough and claim our divine heritage to the fullest extent. God, Mind, is omnipotent and omniscient, as we learn in Christian Science; He has all power and knows all that is true. We can, therefore, claim complete mastery over all evil; and our strength to resist error, the false claimant, will be in proportion to our demands upon omnipotence, the extent to which we claim our birthright as God's child. Since God knows all, and there is nothing in the universe other than God, divine Principle, and His perfect spiritual creation, error, falsity, is unknown to God. God, Soul, sees His child as the perfect reflection of Himself, nothing less; for He has endowed His child with all of good, namely, complete spirituality.

Our divine heritage is here and now, waiting for us to claim it. No depreciation can occur; its value is undiminished. Let us therefore reach out to the Father, and be consciously at one with Him; and then we can say with the Psalmist, "I shall not want," realizing the truth of that statement in our experience.

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