Glorifying God

LELIA EUGENIE SMITH

When we see someone performing a task in a commendable way, do we see it as a personal accomplishment, or do we, as Christian Science teaches, give credit where credit is due, recognizing divine intelligence as the source of every right activity?

Jesus said (Matt. 5:16), "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." He did not say glorify you but "glorify your Father."

Surely our goal should be to perform each task with spiritual understanding, knowing that God is working in us to His own glorification.

Jesus could never have accomplished his mighty healing works had he thought that he alone was the healer. He said (John 5:19), "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." He was constantly aware of his divine heritage as the Son of God, and consequently every thought and deed was the reflection of perfection.

Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, could never have written Science and Health as a personal accomplishment. She knew that this unparalleled book was divinely authorized and dictated. We too must recognize its divine source in order to understand the mighty truths it contains. She says in this textbook (p. 129), "We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things." Realism is the absolute knowledge that man, that is, every one of us, is in reality a perfect spiritual idea of a perfect God, and anything that opposes this thought is "a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

Throughout the Bible we have many accounts of mighty deeds accomplished through the acknowledgment of God's ever-present and sustaining power. When David went to meet Goliath's challenge, he was fully aware of God's presence and ability to sustain him against the mortal weapons which Goliath displayed. He said (I Sam. 17: 45), "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied."

In this human experience, we are apt to extol the human mind and recognize everything we do as a human achievement. Let us ever be alert to our God-given and God-sustained ability to speak and act as divine Mind directs, for as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 488 of Science and Health, "Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension."

As we recognize this divine power, at one with every rightly motivated and well-executed act, we are adding to the glory of this power, and we are giving to the performer of the deed the greatest gift we can bestow on him: the recognition of his true selfhood, his eternal oneness, or unity, with his heavenly Father.

This recognition is blessing not only us, but also the one we are admiring, for we are seeing him in his true status as a son of God, manifesting his God-given ability now. Viewing someone spiritually, as Christian Science reveals him, frees both him and us from finite personal sense and brings out the true sense which glorifies God.

May our prayer ever be to possess a conscious and constant awareness of man in His image.

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