Why do Christ Jesus' teachings still have such a powerful effect on people even today? Because what he taught is recognizable to thoughtful people as universal truth.

Perhaps the next question is, How did one man manage to incorporate so much truth and wisdom in his teaching? Isn't the answer that the Master was living on a unique basis—on the basis of his oneness with his Father, God? It was the innate conviction of his spiritual sonship that gave Jesus the ability to listen to God, the source of all true wisdom. This in turn enabled him to speak with authority and to prove his teachings practical by healing sickness and sin. He said, "The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me."

At the very heart of the Master's instruction is his explanation to all his followers that they have the same divine Father, whose creation—which includes man in His image and likeness—expresses the very nature of its creator and is spiritual. Jesus' teaching opens up for us wholly new vistas of man's infinite capacities as God's reflection. In the light of Christ, Truth, which Jesus embodied and which is still present today, we can begin to see ourselves in this entirely new way, not as finite mortals vulnerable to sickness and sin but as children of God, whole and free.

Jesus' powerful spiritual instruction still engages people now, for it changes thinking from a material to a spiritual basis. It plants seeds of truth that spring up into newness of life and develop individual capacities and talents. All who pay attention, whether they are children or adults, unschooled or learned, can find something that relates to their own daily experience and enriches it.

Jesus spoke of God's kingdom as the present fact, not as a far-off event. But in order to follow the Master and make his teachings practical in their lives, students of Christ have to think and reason from a Christianly scientific basis: from the basis that God, Spirit, is All, and that His kingdom is already within us, within spiritual consciousness.

We receive these profound truths in the understanding and the heart as we learn them, little by little, of Spirit. Receptivity to the things of God, inspiration, and prayer are needed in this learning process, rather than mere intellect or erudition. It requires the eagerness and freshness of a child who naturally finds new things and new ideas intriguing, to explore this world of Spirit and then to prove it practical in our lives.

The Master showed that the best way to increase the faith of men and women is to have faith in their ability to respond to the truth. Even though his devoted followers and friends had varying degrees of understanding—and were men and women with everyday weaknesses and passions—they had a certain earnestness and simplicity that made them teachable. The Master's patient counsel and unsurpassed love for them nurtured their latent spiritual capacities as healers.

As his disciples glimpsed something of their true nature in the likeness of the Divine, they, too, began to heal others through the authority of Christ, Truth, to which they were witnessing. When Jesus sent seventy disciples out at one time to heal in his name, Luke's Gospel records that they returned to the Master and told him with joy of their success in doing what he had taught them.

How can all this be applied in the family, in school, and in Sunday School teaching today? Instead of seeing children as vessels into which knowledge has to be poured, we can recognize instead their wholeness and maturity as children of God. There is never any lack of intelligence or ability in the divine Mind, which all of God's children truly reflect.

Surely one of the most valuable gifts teachers and parents can give to youngsters is the confidence in man's inherent capability to know, be, and accomplish good. And there is no more potent resource for this confidence than the understanding that man is truly the reflection of the Mind which is God. We need to show children that what they think makes a tremendous difference in their lives. We can lovingly encourage them in their spiritual quest to get to know God and to obey Him as the Master did. Then we are doing the most to help them recognize their full worth as sons and daughters of God.

Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, saw the Master as a consummate teacher and communicator. She comments on his series of lessons on life, known as the Sermon on the Mount, in her book Retrospection and Introspection. She writes: "What has this hillside priest, this seaside teacher, done for the human race? Ask, rather, what has he not done. His holy humility, unworldliness, and self-abandonment wrought infinite results. The method of his religion was not too simple to be sublime, nor was his power so exalted as to be unavailable for the needs of suffering mortals, whose wounds he healed by Truth and Love."

As we follow the Master's teaching day by day and learn to love as he did, unconditionally and selflessly, we are gaining a practical education for living. Our understanding of God and His scientific laws increases as we go forward in the way of life that Jesus outlined. Then we are empowered to put these laws to practical use in service to others through healing works.

Ann Kenrick

Next week—Christian Science: its provision for spiritual education.